⭐️ Videos
🎵 Can’t Find My Way Home … Winwood, Clapton .. oh - and Trucks.
A friend of mine down under shared with me … seemed a pertinent message at this point time … not to say it is just gorgeous.
Why your favorite local restaurant might throw away its menu this year. (apple news)
I get it - but isn’t ‘choice’ a quintessential differentiation that America has - to distinguish it from the rest of the world?
Of course choice has its costs (hence that restaurant’s decision). Just think that when you order your eggs, bacon and coffee at the local diner, there are close to 1,000 potential permutations that the short order cook has to juggle. That surely is one reason why some diners say ‘no substitutions'.
I just wish that they would have started by cutting back on the choice of toothpaste first.
🎵 This Is The End
I wrote an email this morning, responding to something that had been sent to me, announcing - and I paraphrase - that despite the longevity of the work that he had been personally driving for decades, he has decided that this was indeed - ‘the end’.
I guess it is one of those days, where every where you look, every page you turn emotion takes over and (at least for me), music takes hold.
Because I - and indeed he - are ‘of a certain age’, ‘The End’ came to mind. (If you aren’t of a certain age - I commend you to watch just one (if not all three) of the YouTubes below.) If you are of a certain age - you don’t need me to tell you.
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes again
“Every time I hear that song, it means something else to me. It started out as a simple good-bye song… Probably just to a girl, but I see how it could be a goodbye to a kind of childhood."
💬 Jim Morrison
If you want a really good cry, the images most certainly do nothing to distract from the pain of the song …
If you want to listen to the original recording of nearly 11 minutes that took just 30 minutes of studio time (think about that) …
If you are of the live music persuasion… in the US you had Woodstock. In the UK we had The Isle of Wight …
New Zealand | Unrecognized Leadership
If the UK and/or the USA could find more leaders that demonstrate the qualities of Jacinda Arden, wouldn’t both surely be better off for it?
Sadly, she’s had her run, the voters are not going her way hence her resignation. ‘Hitch’ is being allowed to reset the agenda and so far at least, seems to be turning the ‘anti-Labour’ tide. Make no mistake though, yes, she took some wrong turns but the problems being laid at her feet won’t go away with new leaders. It’s a global problem … and despite New Zealand managing to punch well above their international weight over the last few years … these global issues are exactly that … global.
🔗 Colbert pays tribute to Jacinda
🎙️ What was behind Jacinda-mania and why did it end so suddenly?
Watch the first minute. If you are not hooked. Move on.
🔗📼 If you can’t see the video below try this link
Who is this?
Mike Monteiro - Suggesting that we Destroy Silicon Valley
#vimeo
🎵 I have been working my way through Breaking Bad. Last night this was played with one of the characters singing along.
I had to look it up. Never heard it before. Didn’t know the artists. Superb.
The comments seem to be all related to the show, I guess it’s not just me.
🎵 Transatlantic are set to release a new concert set. I just watched a video.
BRILLIANT (not the performance … the idea.)
Many artists complain about cell phones in their concerts and the ensuing distractions for them and the audience.
Portnoy has clearly solved the problem.
Get everybody to use their phones like an old fashioned lighter and get those batteries drained to zero!
🎵 Apparently
HAKEN are set to release their seventh studio album ‘Fauna’ on the 3rd March 2023.
… and they celebrated Valentine’s Day with the launch of their latest single ‘Lovebite’.
I guess Valentine’s Day is not what it used to be?
Setting Categories Automatically On MicroBlog
It’s interesting how small things mess you up. I am putting some time into trying to make it easier to find stuff on my blog and recently discovered filters where you can “automatically set categories when text in new posts matches a filter”.
For new posts it seems to work flawlessly. The cool thing is that you can ‘Run Filter’ - which essentially means that it will go off and apply that rule to your archive. It works.
Of course if you have a lot of posts (sorry), it might take some time - but it does seem to get there. So. after a while, when I view the categories I can see the post count increasing. And - when I look at the posts through the lens of Mars Edit I can see all the new posts where the category has been applied.
All good. UNTIL. I noticed that though every thing SEEMED to be working - actually, over on the web site, the categories were not being allocated. Turns out patience is a virtue - because after several days (I kid you not) elapsed, it seemed that everything was also working on the site. All good.
( @manton - is this time delay expected behavior?)
All good until I set up the filter to
find text = ‘youtube.com/watch' and add that post to the category ‘myyoutubes’.
The wait aside, it ran like a dream. Except it didn’t. I realized that posts that definitely contained links back to YouTube were not being picked up. I ran the filter again - and waited. TWICE. Nothing changed.
This morning I discovered why.
Turns out that there is a second URL format that YouTube uses … youtu.be
I am guessing that the youtube syntax varies depending on whether you are on a computer versus iOS or something similar. Anyway, I then set up a second filter that adds the post to the same category - and … it is now working (wait aside)
BTW, the really cool thing is that I also use the plugin ‘Lite YouTube for Micro.blog by @rknightuk - so those links automatically render as embedded videos on my site. 🖇️ Say, like this one - which at time of typing still hasn’t been correctly allocated its category - but I am keeping an eye on it.
Most people I know will resonate with this 🔗 video. A great example of ‘truth in humour’. And yes I know there are exceptions … which is why OUR fitted sheets are always perfectly folded!
Russell Brand Sucks
I was never a fan of Russell Brand, so hard to say my opinion of him has ‘fallen’.
That was from the start, but his very misplaced prank with Ross on Andrew Sachs sealed it for me.
I also don’t spend much time thinking about Jonathan Ross - but at least he has a tiny spec of talent.
Which is why I enjoyed this short video of 🔗📼 Helen Lewis talking Russell Brand decent into conspiracies and a good analysis of how he - and others of his ilk - ‘do it’.
[April 6: 2025 - sadly - this video has been take private - BUT there is this one …
🔗📼 How Russell Brand became a conspiracy theorist Guru | Helen Lewis
I always had 🎵 BrandX as ‘Jazz/Fusion’ - but they are sometimes classified as ‘Progressive’. That’s why 🔗 ’genres’ are so hard - if not to say meaningless. Whichever they are - a great listen - delivered courtesy of The Old Grey Whistle Test.
📽️ Cunk was so good, that I had to go remind myself of this short piece from Charlie Brooker. It was done years ago, was my first exposure to him and has to be a timeless classic.
🎵 Third of three … in the bucket of ‘well I never’ …
‘The Dukes of September’ .. who? Skaggs, McDonald. Fagen and needless to say, quite a few other great musicians around them.
🎵Running through some YouTube music last night - and well - seriously - what is not to love? Stunning. Two very different songs from the same album.
Steven Wilson - Luminol (Mexico City)
🎵 Jon Lord plays Dave Brubeck
As a kid, shall we say my musical taste did not jibe with my dad’s. Nor with my mum’s for that matter - although she did understand what I was listening to - and why. Probably because of that there are artists that she introduced me to that are still part of my listening cycle - like Dave Brubeck.
She passed a while ago, but would have loved Deep Purple’s Jon Lord covering ‘UnSquare Dance’.
Elsewhere I referenced Tim Minchin’s ‘3 minute’ song. Very clever. Very funny. And guess what … it is only three minutes long!
I have been saying that My Speciality is Generality for years.