As I’ve become interested in politics again as the election approaches, it seemed appropriate that I should make sure I’m on the electoral roll.
It’s a good job I checked, because the council doesn’t even know that my flat exists (for voting, annoyingly they can find me for Council Tax purposes). They’re sending me a letter so I can sort it all out.
There’s a postcode lookup database in general use which doesn’t have my address on it. The house as a whole is listed, but none of the flats. Some might consider this a good thing but, combined with some shortsighted web design and a delivery company that can’t deliver on the dates they’re told to, it means I’m still waiting for my new phone, which should have been here a week ago.
Objects of Desire may become an irregular preview of things I’ve found that I really want but, usually, can’t afford.
Working for a company which sells audio-visual kit I regularly post details of some very nice stuff to the internet. Today I got to look at some of it. I thought my cheap and cheerful turntable with USB output was good enough for what I wanted to do- rip my vinyl (eventually) to the pc. But maybe I want a better turntable, one I can connect to the other separates I’m now inevitably going to buy, which will really get the best out of my old records.
Audiophiles will tell you that a well set up turntable, even a relatively cheap one, will sound better than almost any cd player. But you have to be willing to do a bit of tinkering. There are many tricks to getting a good sound from your vinyl. The most obvious one is to cut vibration and resonance, which will be fed to the needle and result in distortion. The turntables I was shown today, from Austrian manufacturer Pro-ject, have sturdy chassis made from medium density fibreboard or, at the high end, perspex and some clever tricks such as mounting the belt drive motor in an elastic cradle. A side effect of the materials and techniques used is that the turntables are very good looking pieces of kit. Stunning in the case of the perspex ones.
The Pro-ject Debut III USB is a version of Pro-ject’s basic model which also outputs to USB so you can rip music to .wav files on your computer then convert them to mp3, FLAC or whatever your preferred digital format is. In my dream computer/audio/video setup I think I’d have one of these to rip the vinyl I’d start buying again.
Disclosure The link above goes to an Amazon listing by the company I work for. It’s an affiliate link, if you buy the turntable they and I will both make some money. Other people also sell Pro-ject through Amazon, but none of them pay my wages.
A chain ring clock made from the small chain ring of a mountain bike and a disc which came off a siezed wheel. Buy them, and others, through the Spinneyhead Zibbet shop.
Echobelly should have been the big band of 1994. Instead we got Oasis. Whilst I have a soft spot for the Burnage monkey boys’ output, Sonya Aurora Madan’s band was more interesting.
As I work my way through the large number of mp3s on my hard drive I’ve been reminded that I don’t have all of Echobelly’s stuff. So I’m off to rectify that. And you should be too.
The EchobelytvSME channel on YouTube has I Can’t Imagine The World Without Me, The World Is Flat and Here Comes The Big Rush at high quality, but has turned embedding off, which is annoying.
Spencer Tunick is known for creating art installations involving hundreds of naked people and photographing them. He’s done them all over the world, and now he’s coming to Manchester and Salford. Sign up through the Lowry to take part in the two day event, Tunick’s first multi location shoot, which has been inspired by the art of L S Lowry himself.
A student group at the university called The Atheist Agenda is reviving its Bibles-for-porn program, called “Smut for Smut,” for three days beginning March 1, according to a report from San Antonio’s KENS-TV.
The idea is that when you look at holy books, a lot of the content is far more objectionable than any issue of Playboy, which is what the group are giving away.
On 24 August 2005, [BNP candidate for the London Assembly] Mr Eriksen wrote: “I’ve never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime … Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal.
“To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that forcefeeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched.
“The demonisation of rape is all part of the feminazi desire to obtain power and mastery over men. Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors.”
Aside from the fact that anyone who uses the word “feminazi” is a moron of the highest order, this is just vile. Anyone who can vote in the London Assembly elections do your best to persuade everyone you know to vote against this arsehole.
is a version of Pro-ject’s basic model which also outputs to USB so you can rip music to .wav files on your computer then convert them to mp3, FLAC or whatever your preferred digital format is. In my dream computer/audio/video setup I think I’d have one of these to rip the vinyl I’d start buying again.
, but none of them pay my wages.
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