eh by gum

My travel to work is now strictly by LRT bus and since the New year I've taken to riding upstairs as it provides a different outlook on the world. Some days even find me on the seats at the very front, though I refrain from "driving the bus". Small children and parents will understand that reference.



What I have noticed now our steets have been jet-washed by driving wind and rain is the level of chewing gum splatter on the pavements. There's hardly a square foot that is not covered in the stuff; which brought a couple of thoughts to mind. How does the damn stuff get there in the first place? The streets are not full of gum gobbing trolls so I reckon it's distribution must be more akin to the subtle but widely practised art of public nose picking. Keep an eye out for that one. And paving slab manufacturers are definitely missing the boat in not providing artificial gum enhanced products. Surely architects and urban planners would just love the chance to provide that authentiic city-scape feel to their new developments. But I wouldn't want it on my patio. Anyway, watch your step.

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double plus aacPlus

Last month I blogged about the fantastic audio quality now available from aacPlus at 48kbps. It just gets better. Check the 24kbps stereo - yes that's stereo - streams on the Orban listings. Thanks to the good folk at Preco for pointing me there.



What's going to really drive this of course is the incorporation of the aacPlus codec into the DSP chips in mobile phones. Betcha!

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79 Springs

A mood of light melancholy on another grey Scottish winter's day found me thinking on my long-gone young manhood and on films from it that have particularly stood in my mind for 35 years or so. One such is 79 Springs by the Cuban director Santiago Alvarez (1919-1998) to which I was introduced by an older woman who had loved me and taken me in at the time. I was 19 or so and she 10 years older. And to her I'd like now to say thanks for much of making the best parts of the person I am today. I've always been a lucky lad. And on that note a quote from Senor Alvarez:



"The advertisements of capitalism are, in fact, much better than the product. The Jesuits were their precursors. Remember that saying about giving them a child? Remember too the famous old-style Coca-Cola bottle? Why do you think it was designed like that? Feel it and you will find out. It is in the shape of a woman wearing the long dresses of teatime. When a woman has a good body, we say in Cuba that she is Coca-Cola."



Footnote: Whilst blogging on this came across news from ELF on the DVD of his work due for imminent realease.

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wot no wmd!

I see that the US has given up searching for WMD in Iraq stating that "Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons at the time of the US-led invasion nearly two years ago." thereby confirming Tony's status as the complete unprincipled lying scumbag we all know him to be. Oooh Yes Prime Minister! On the other hand, Hans Blix is a model world citizen of exemplary rectitude and principle. You might like to watch his public lecture last year at The University of Edinburgh. Teach your children well.

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dead dogs

Seen scrawled across the back of a lorry somewhere on the M6 over the festive period: "Ken Dodd's dad's dog's dead."

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