My Top 10 iPod tunes - 01/04/2008

1. (-) - Going Through The Motions - Aimee Mann
2. (-) - Once Upon A Time - Air
3. (-) - Drumnagarry Strathspey/Pirrie Wirrie/Big John's Reel - Altan
4. (-) - Mozart - Rondo Alla Turca - Andrei Gavrilov
5. (-) - If You Were There, Beware - Arctic Monkeys
6. (-) - Turtle - Artery
7. (-) - Penny Lane - The Beatles
8. (-) - No One Will Know - Bella
9. (-) - Stars - The Buzzcocks
10. (-) - T T T - The Buzzcocks

My iPod had one of its occasional total crap-outs (craps-out?) the other day and I had to re-format the damn thing. I also, for the first time, created my own "library" in iTunes. Up to know, the entire family had used the same library, but because of my...er...specialist taste in music, whenever I added anything to my iPod, I always deleted it afterwards from the library. Obviously, the material was either on a hard drive as a download or was on CD, so it was possible (though very painful) to track down all the material I'd had to delete. The whole process ran over three days..:-(

I also took the opportunity to drop some old material I'd been listening to for ages and introduce some new stuff. Plus I allowed myself to sample some of the stuff that my kids had on the main library - I know - taking my life in my hands and that.

Bottom line is - this month's chart bears absolutely no relation to that of last month. Sorry about that, chaps.

It strikes me that this type of thing was never an issue with vinyl - ah, me...

Regards,


djp

Prague Spring, 2008

Last week, I spent a few days in Prague on business. I got the opportunity to bring the family over as well, so I took it.

If you haven't been to Prague before, get ye there as quickly as possible. It's got wonderful architecture in the centre of the city - mindblowing, in fact. Mind you, where we were staying, everything was a bit Stalinist and run-down, working-class. But I got no sense of threat there.

The residents of Prague seem to be courteous, if not exactly friendly, but courteous is fine by me.

Herewith, some pics...

Regards,


djp

Read. Enjoy.

http://byneddiejingo.blogspot.com/2008/03/four-diamond-girl.html


Regards,


djp

Won me a competition...

... on David Cairns' wonderful movie blog, SHADOWPLAY.

Just me waxing a tad lyrical, as I am wont to do. Might even do something with it in the sweet by-and-by.

SHADOWPLAY is well worth checking out on an ongoing basis if you enjoy the world of cinema. Highly recommended!

Regards,


djp

Lotto-explaining-to-do

Last Saturday, the Irish National Lottery jackpot was heading for €10 million. That would buy a lot of Snickers ice cream, don't you think?

I don't play the Lotto terribly often. Usually only when there's a fairly decent jackpot roll-over. I seem to have no gambling gene at all - I'm just not interested. Quite the opposite, in fact - I almost have a pathological fear of being overcome with the gambling fever. So I limit my flutters to an occasional trip to the gee-gees and an (almost) annual bet on the Gunners every August. Not much more than that really.

And when I do the Lotto, more often than not I forget to check the results, so what's the point really? As I said, no gambling gene.

But you can't really ignore a €10 million jackpot, can you?

So on Saturday, I trekked over to Tesco and did my (for want of a better description, given the foregoing) "usual" play - four lines of Quick Pick and Lotto Plus. €8 stake. I walked away from the counter with the Lotto numbers and playslip in my left hand. Just as I was taking a sneaky peak at the front pages on the newspaper stand, I remembered that I needed to buy a ream of printing paper for my PC. I went to the appropriate aisle, found the paper and ventured towards the self-service checkout. Did the needful and emerged at the other side. At that stage I decided to check that I had my Lotto papers intact. To my horror, I discovered that while I had the playslip, I'd lost the actual Lotto numbers. I went back inside the store and re-traced my steps. No sign of the numbers. Obviously, some eagle-eyed passer-by had seen me drop the numbers and decided to help themselves to a free stake in the Lotto draw.

Cursing my stupidity, I went back to the counter and did another €8 play. €16 down - what a plonker...

As I went back to the car, I considered how terrible it would be if someone won the Lotto with my lost numbers, so I offered a silent prayer to the Guy in the Penthouse that no-one from Nenagh would win the jackpot, and guess what...

...there is a Guy in the Penthouse. The jackpot wasn't won at all, in Nenagh or anywhere else, and it rolls over to the next draw on Wednesday. Who knows how much that's going to be worth.

Of course, when I told my tale to Mrs. P, she concurred with my conclusion that I am, indeed, a plonker.

But the story doesn't end there - I decided to check my second set of numbers online and discovered that I'd "matched three" on the Lotto Plus 2 draw. And my prize? A free €1 scratch card. Big whoop - I'll probably forget to claim it or lose the numbers or summat.

As I said, no gambling gene...:-^)

Regards,


djp

Critter Cadaver No. 3 - Dead Mouse

Found at the side of the house yesterday. Panther's handiwork, I'd imagine...

Regards,


djp

My Top 10 iPod tracks - 01/03/2008

1. (1) - Burst Me Stitches (PC Mix) - Daniel Prendiville
2. (2) - Hello? Is This Thing On? - !!!
3. (-) - Sedition's Wish - 31 Knots
4. (-) - Life On Earth - The Divine Comedy
5. (8) - Moanin' The Blues - Hank Williams
6. (3) - Sam's Town - The Killers
7. (4) - Moon (John Peel Session) - Microdisney
8. (-) - Clean Up For Christmas - Aimee Mann
9. (-) - Californie - Air
10. (-) - Everything That's You - Airliner

Regards,


djp