Pink Martini

Continuing what is now an almost regular feature, this Friday's musical interlude features the smooth sounds of Pink Martini. The music is as lush as the description:

"Somewhere between a 1930s Cuban dance orchestra, a classical chamber music ensemble, a Brasilian marching street band and Japanese film noir is the 12-piece Pink Martini."

It's a Friday rhumba in the lazylaces household [thanks to ritilan]!

Entry 979, Friday, October 15th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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Instant Mess

If you haven't seen it already and you've ever so much as e-mailed the person sitting next to you at work you'll love instant mess. I especially like the football game at the end. We've all been there...haven't we?

BTW - I now have an AIM account if anyone would like to chat - screen name lazy graeme - drop me a line with your details and I'll watch out for you.

Entry 978, Friday, October 15th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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Which (Middle) Class Are You?

Modern day Britain is a classless society supposedly, so it's slightly strange that we all know exactly which class we belong too, and could probably make a fair bet on what class any random person we bumped into in the street belonged to as well. Not that we categorise or anything - no siree. Anyway if you're having trouble deciding which exact sub-category of middle-class you belong to (not me obviously since I'm a toff - no question) this is the on-line quiz for you.

If I were middle-class, which I'm not, I'd apparently be part of (Jamie) Oliver's Army (worryingly I own a Jamie Oliver book). All this of course will make no sense if you are from outside the UK. I would explain, but it would take a very long time.

Entry 977, Friday, October 15th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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[ In The Woods ]

If you go down in the woods today you're sure of a big surprise.

Entry 976, Thursday, October 14th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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Google Destop Search

Big techie news of the day is the release of google desktop search beta. Make your inner geek moist with a download today! I have, have you?

Seriously folks, even with some very basic tinkering around this seems great - been running it for just a few minutes really and it's already indexed most of my MP3 collection - find the tracks you want to listen to in (sub) seconds - none of that tricky navigating around in Winamp or Windows Explorer for me anymore.

In fact, early days yet, but, has this totally negated the need for the, super-speedy, Windows Explorer search 'facility'? Or indeed Windows Explorer itself? Do we even need to worry about how we structure folders and files anymore? As long as we give them meaningful names - I guess it could be. Only time will tell, but my gut feel is a heart-felt yes.

Next stage for me is to install this at work - I have the feeling that this will make finding the code snippets I'm always losing much easier to find which will make life a lot easier (I sometimes find myself recoding things I know I've done before just because I can't locate the original code). Question: does this index mapped drives/network locations too? I guess I'll find out when I try this in the office. Hmmm...what happens when you attach removeable drives like USB keys? I can feel some hardcore experimenting coming up with this.

I'd be interested to hear everyone's opinions, ideas, experiences in the comments - I'll probably post some more there myself when I've had more time to play.

Entry 975, Thursday, October 14th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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I'm Not Getting Out Of Bed

This is kind of like me on a Saturday morning.

Entry 974, Tuesday, October 12th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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The Doctor Is In

The doctor is in and he has the answer to all of life's problems. Admittedly it's always the same answer, but it's an enjoyable one. Possibly NSFW [from the warped mind of dan].

Entry 972, Tuesday, October 12th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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Words That Sound Dirty, But Aren't

Do you hear that childish giggling? That's me reading "words that sound dirty, but aren't", that is [via daisy].

Entry 971, Tuesday, October 12th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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Strong Bad Unplugged

Entry 970, Monday, October 11th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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Zoom

Use your cursor keys to zoom in and out of this freakish creation.

Shockwave Required To View - Click Here To Download Shockwave

Entry 968, Friday, October 8th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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Estelle

I've been listening a lot to Kiss 100 on-line recently (for reasons too complex to go into here it's about the only radio sation I like that I can get thru the firewall at work). Anyway they've been giving some heavy airplay to the gorgeous Estelle - a major British talent (in more ways than one) - and I highly recommend a visit to her site which is done with some funky flash and it has some great sounds to listen too - watch out especially for her current track 'Free', and the last single '1980'.

PS. Un-intentionally this is my second week in a row with a musical link on a Friday - this might become a mini-theme since I enjoy a good sing-a-long and a dance around the flat to wind down after another long week at work. Although I am kind of lazy and these plans have a habit of not coming through so don't hold your breath.

Entry 967, Friday, October 8th 2004, Filed In Stuff
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F*ck NTL

My cable modem service is provided by NTL here in the UK. Their product is great, a nice 750K service, but as soon as the service goes wrong the customer service is a nightmare - years on hold, rude phone operators, and very little understanding of what an internet connection is, let alone of any problem you might be having. Don't get me wrong they have great technical staff, it just takes a million phone calls, and lots of patience, to talk to one of them.

Anyway, that's the background, which is why I had to laugh long and hard at this story about the hacking of their phone message service to make it much more appropriate:

"Hello. You are through to NTL customer services. We don't give a f**k about you. We are never here. We just will f**k you about, basically, and we are not going to handle any of your complaints. Just f**k off and leave us alone. Get a life."

On second thoughts perhaps it wasn't a hack, and just a refreshingly honest approach to marketing.