Weekly WTF: DVD Rewinder

Open Your Ears Wk 25

Tori Amos - Spark

*stolen from Wikipedia*

Amos was born in Newton, North Carolina. When she was two, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she began to play the piano. By age five, she had begun composing instrumental pieces on piano and, while living in Rockville, Maryland, she won a full scholarship to the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music.^[4] Her scholarship was discontinued at age 11 and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.^[4] At the age of 14, she began playing at piano bars, chaperoned by her father.<sup>[4]

this is a song about miscarriage of all things, but its hauntingly beautiful and heartfelt and truly a brilliant piece of songwriting

Live on Jools Holland

Mohammed My Friend ft Maynard James Keenan from Tool</sup>

NearMap Progress

Nearmap.com is my new Google maps and if you haven't seen it - get on it!

Its especially interesting if you happen to be doing alot of DIY outside and want to see what it looks like from a Qantas perspective. The best part of it (and the part that distinguishes it from Google) is the frequency of photos. Recently its been as as often as once a month so for all those weekend warriors who take a little while to complete a project, it gives you a great progress timeline!

As you can see from the pics, our patio went from awe-ful to awe-some and now we're just in awe that its finished! Next month we'll see the garden out the front done, flashings installed on the patio, lawn out the back planted, the Hyundai disappear and the black area next to the carport transformed to a new Moke home!

Possible downsides of the site are:
- The Mrs has proof of how long that last project REALLY took you.
- Your hidden junk pile behind the shed is hidden no more!
- You can see that the grass IS greener at your neighbour's place.
- People can see the milkman's car parked out the front all the time.

Happy Stalking!

Weekly WTF: Smelly Billboards

This billboard emits a steak scent in rush hour to get your juices flowing on the way home from work earning it this weeks WTF!

....... and yes now I wanna have steak tonight!

Blah Billiards

So yesterday we were doing the Perth pop-in to everyone we know and stumbled upon an old bar, pool table style........... thing(!) in Annes back shed. After a few Googles and confused looks on our faces, we discovered that its an old Bar Billiards table.

Apart from the resemblance to Pool, Bar Billiards is vastly different. It is played with short cues from 1 of the narrow ends of the table, not all around. The aim is to sink as many white/red balls as possible into a series of holes in the slate surface itself. Each hole has a set score which is tallied on the table backboard and the ideal shot is one that goes 'in-off' sinking both the ball struck with the cue AND the 2nd ball involved. Sitting on the table are 3 obstacles called 'Dollies' which, if struck, end your turn and either erase your score from that turn or 1 case your entire score!

The game is controlled by a 10 minute timer inside which holds the ball return gate open. Each player shoots, adding score when a ball (or 2) goes down. When sunk, the balls roll into the ball return over and over until the timer stops, causing the gate to close. Each player continues to shoot until they DON'T sink a ball or they hit a Dolly. Play alternates until the timer stops. As usual, highest score wins.

To me, that all sounded interesting enough to dig into what it would realistically take time/effort/money wise to get it working again, how rare it is and what it would be worth once restored (not that it would be for sale but its good to know). So far I've done some reading on wikipedia and a few other sites but the most un/interesting part so far was some youtube.com videos.

Bar Video - hear the timer?
70's Tournament Footage - 20secs -> 4min
Home Video with horrible overuse of camera effects

It appears like the reason these tables no longer exist is a reflection of the entertainment value they provide. If your still awake at the end of the game, you win! My realistic evaluation is therefore, yes, it would be an interesting project and not that costly but the result of a months work and a few hundred $$ is a game you might play once a year.

Having said that, if someone had the space to play it and was interested in getting it running, I think I would be too.... purely for the novelty of it. I'll be continuing my research over the next few weeks and will probably start crunching numbers so let me know if it jump-started any of your interested brain cells.
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Open Your Ears Wk 24

Scribble - Underworld

TGIF

thought I'd get the disco inferno raging with the latest from Underworld, super stuff here, could even get me on a dance floor and that's saying something!

Scribble youtube

Underworld have had some sort of career, starting out as a guitar/synth band with perennial favourite "Underneath the Radar" then they dropped that ideology when a new member joined and they headed into the dance/house/drum n bass etc artiste

they hit major commercial success with the cracking track "Born Slippy" in the mid 90's

have a good weekend y'all

Singstar: Wiggles

Anyone who has/knows a child between 1-4 probably knows an unhealthy amount of Wiggles lyrics. Why not put that completely useless knowledge to work and get on Singstar: Wiggles.

Seriously how did this get off the idea block @ Sony? Are they hoping everyone will just get it as a joke? I've read a few reviews and I reckon I could have written them without even turning the game on:

Pro's: Short, simple songs
Cons: Even 4 year olds cant read that fast, all songs are earworms and short (yes its a con too!)

Not that I have had that much personal experience with the Wiggles but I get the idea that its a set and forget kinda thing. Something that gives you 30mins to do whatever you want not something that requires constant attention swapping songs, stopping the kids from belting each other with mics etc etc.

Here's a quote I've just found that sums it up perfectly (from CNET.com)

"...If you're not familiar with a given track and you happen to be three years old, in our experience you'll struggle more than a little, and the patience of small people is often only measured in picoseconds. This doesn't make SingStar The Wiggles is a bad game per se. It's just that if you were picking it up as just another Wiggles product that you could stick the kids in front of and go off and do something else, think again. The menus are simple enough, but to avoid frustration at not following the words correctly, you'll need an adult on hand. Hopefully, an adult that doesn't mind having Wiggles songs (short though they may be) stuck in their heads for days on end.

As you might be able to tell, just testing SingStar The Wiggles was enough to get Hot Potato pretty much permanently wedged into our cerebral cortexes. We're hoping there's some kind of cure..."

I'd say these will find the bargain bin bloody quickly! Current RRP $49 but get your $10 ready in a months time.

Cya Singers

P.S. Kylie if this finds its way into our house it will definitely find the bin!

Weekly WTF: iPad Macintosh

Open Your Ears Wk 23

The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio

Great Song, WTF is with the video

The national are an indie band out of Brooklyn i think, but originally from Ohio and this song is obvoiusly a reference to his growing up, very obvious to hear them as the guy's baritone voice is pretty disctinctive

City Middle

i think I'm back on track now!

enjoy

Fact Up Tuesday

In line with the randomness of this site I thought I'd share some odd facts n figures today

4,825 - The speed in kph that glass breaks at
23 - How old Ralph Macchio was in Karate Kid when he played a high school senior
3,300,000,000 - The amount in AUD the TV show Seinfeld has earned SINCE finishing in 1998
30 - The age when an adult human begins to shrink
0 - Number of Ponys in the Pony Express
53(:1) - The ratio of lego bricks in the world to humans
2,400 - The age of the oldest mushroom
12(lbs) - Average weight of an elephant tooth
6.4 - The rate (per minute) you burn calories while kissing
26 - Calories are in a Hersheys Kiss
31 - The number of films Elvis acted in
13 - The number of years that took him!
10 - % of the worlds salt is used to de-ice American roads
61000 - People are airbourne over the US at any time
130 - The average number of Facebook friends each subscriber has
35,000,000 - People update their Facebook status every single day
570 - Calories in a McDonalds 'regular' fries
2.4(m) - The highest point of land on the Maldives
2034 - The year in which scientists believe it will be totally gone due to global warming
5 - % of the worlds population are Americans
25 - % of all energy consumption is in America
13 - % of road users do not have a drivers licence
1 - % of those are cab drivers

Anyone have anything else interesting to add?

Oh and:

1 - The number of children Adam and Bel have - Congrats guys, she's a cutie!
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Open Your Ears Wk 22

seeing as i have fallen a week behind due to numerous computer malfunctions i thought i better get back on track

TGIF...so i figured i'd get the weekend rolling with some disco inferno

get on yer dance pants


OU EST LE SWIMMING POOL - I JUST DANCE THE WAY I FEEL

they are getting the flog-o-matic 500 on the jays so Im hearing it a lot and digging it, I know nothing of the artist

here is the ewetoob vid

for some reason it reminds me of this other fancy dancy pantsy song

I'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you

Not A Fan

I think all my projects/ideas are jinxed by whats called 'The Phil Factor' or TPF.

I have a few friends that contact me from time to time and the first thing they say is "So WHAT are you trying to do now?". It has stemmed from a string of partially insane ideas I seem to come up with and the 50% of them that become a reality carry an invisible feature that cannot be described with anything other than TPF.

Is it the 400 DVD player off ebay that only plays R1 (even though it said multi on the ad) discs? the stubbie cooler holder that I couldn't hang on the wall as I was only a tenant? the Moke? TAF? the budget patio that can now suffice as a tornado bunker? motorcycle licence? the arcade machines? centurion? the bucks drive to Broome? I think you get the idea.......

The new house has brought a few more humdingers to that list and the icing on the cake was last night. We installed a computer network in the house to stream movies and tv shows around the place and I needed a way of joining them all in the roof cavity. Not an issue as it should be relatively easy to install a network hub for that however hubs need power don't they.

From my escapades in the roof of the Balcatta joint, mums place and now our place I have noted that all ceiling fans are connected using a normal power outlet - BINGO. If I just plug a double adapter into one and run an extension cord to where I want the hub - Ding Dang Do - Sorted! So last night I did just that, got everything ready, jumped up in there, ran the cable - all too easy - oh apart from the fact that the hub doesn't turn on?!?

The brain started griding and couldn't explain it. I tried the fan, it worked, so if there is power there then why why WHY doesn't it work!!!!!! (can you guess the punchline yet?) In the hope absence from the problem brought clarity, I finished terminating a few cables, connected them all to the hub and it came on!

W T F

Tried a few things on the network - most worked, 1 didn't. I realised that the cable on the 1 was the fault so I repaired it aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand......... nothing. Check the cable again and it was fine, went up in the roof and the hub was off again! GRRRRRRRRR. (can you guess it yet????). I rechecked all the power and it came on again! Result. I started cleaning up and did 1 last check.... it was off..... *insert swear words here*.

The problem? I hadn't allowed for TPF. While working on the problem, what was Kylie doing? She was tending to Cameron, showering, pampering herself, tidying etc etc. An integral part of all those things was turning the fan on and off in the bathroom which ( i know you know now!) activated the electrical outlet in the roof and turned the hub on!!!!!!!!!!

So long story short if you want to use the network @ our place, stroll into the bathroom and flick on the fan first! It could only happen in our place.

What can I say TPF sneaks up and gets me everytime.

Have a great long weekend freestylers
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Weekly WTF: Beard Beanie

Open Your Ears Wk 21

UNEARTHED HIGH

so triple j does this comp every year where they have a high school band comp and the best band gets flogged on the radio from then on. It can be hit and miss as you would certainly expect from youngsters trying to make music but this year the finalists are pretty good

Foreign Lover - Iotah - a all girl four piece (all sisters), playing some bluesy style indie rock, grrrrrrrrreat vocals

Sarah is for Lovers - Blud - electro punk group from a Perth private boys school, tacking on to the Presets/Cut Copy/Bloody beetroots trend

Castles - Glass Towers - four piece indie rock band, seem to be pretty experienced for such a young age having already played support gigs and Splenour in the Grass

Winter Time - Aurora & Daisy - Twin sisters, strumming their acoustics, angelic voices. Very simple and sweet

Livin' - The Living Eyes - 60's rock/pop has been reborn 50 years later by a bunch of shaggy haired teenagers. Sounds very dirty and unpolished but it suits the sound they are going for


and my vote goes to Iotah

EDIT: Announced today, the winner is...............IOTAH! congrats ladies

Weekly WTF: Loch Ness Elephant