Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Things figured out. Week 2. Teletext/Aertel

Many years ago, in an age before the internet, the bbc invented a thing called teletext. It was a revelation. Until now most people would say that magic invented Teletext. Most people should read the following.....

Teletext is broadcast in the "Vertical Blanking Interval" (VBI) lines of the television signal. This is an area unused by the actual television - it has been left to give the television's electron beam time to return to the top of the screen, these days it is more historical than anything else.
This picture shows you what I mean...
The electron beam scans your television screen from left to right, then flies back to scan the next line. It actually scans every other line, doing this some 300 times for each 'field'. Then the beam needs to return to the top left to begin scanning the missing lines, or the next frame (this is known as 'interlacing'; there are 625 lines on a PAL/SECAM television (of which around 576 are 'visible'), and 525 lines on an NTSC television; there are 25 complete frames (30 for NTSC) every second, and each complete frame is built up from two fields, every odd line and every even line).
This return-to-top takes slightly more time than a simple fly-back, and this is why the VBI exists. The VBI is larger then you might expect, as it also includes unmistakable synchronisation data so each and every television knows exactly where in the broadcast signal each frame begins, and can lock on to that, knowing also when each line begins.
So, then, we have this 'blank' bit of the television signal, right? Wrong - just because the television doesn't display this part of the signal doesn't mean it is mostly junk. You can hide all sorts of stuff in there (don't get paranoid, it's mostly just boring 'test' information). One thing tucked away in the VBI is teletext. If you were to 'play' with the Vertical Hold on your television, until the picture started to roll slowly, you would see a few lines of blinking and flashing dots of all sorts of colours, towards the bottom of the VBI and above the normal picture.
Phew!!!! Who on earth would of known that such a brilliant system worked so easily! It wasn't magic afterall just sheer genius.
Teletext was the english version, after a while RTE introduced Aertel to Ireland and went "on-line" 22nd of June 1987.
My personal favourite memory of Teletext was staying up all night waiting for Teletext to tell me the Fabrizio Ravenelli had signed for Tottenham..... my wait was in vain as eventually he signed for Middlesborough (what a cunt). Feel free to leave your favourite memories of Teletext/Aertel Below.

Friday, June 22, 2007

The week in weather



Today will be mainly a mix of heavy showers and sunshine. Tomorrow will be pretty much the same as today.


In the early part of next week, there will be blustery winds which will keep the temperatures in the mid to low teens. If you had to describe it in a funnier way you would say the weather will be like Gary Glitter.

There will be no point in dressing like the man above as it's gonna be pretty much like last
week. Which is a shame.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

What the 80's were really about.

"I've got love for you if you were born in the 80's" so said Calvin Harris.
That song is shit, and he is more than likely a prick. For a taste of the real 80's check out the video below.


Finished? CHEK DIZ SHIT OT MOTHA FUCKAH. Buy it on picture disc.

The Nazis are back!!

No they aren't really Nazis but at one stage everyone thought they were.
Regardless of this minor blip, Kula Shaker are back!! And will release there first album since 1999's "peasants, pigs and astronauts" on August 27th.
Oh yes, it will be called "strangefolk"

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Posh



What an arsehole

Things figured out. Week one : What was the last Beatles album?


Was it Abbey Road or Let it be?
Let it be was recorded in 1969 and was supposed to be a documentry about the band recording an album and was meant to culminate with the bands return to live performance, however it actually turned out to be a documentary about the band fighting and generally annoying eachother. Upon viewing this material the band the decided the album and "the documentary" were a load of shit, so they scrapped it. After this they went into the studio again, this time with George Martin, and recoreded Abbey Road. Which they released later that year, 1969. This turned out to be the last Beatles album that they recorded. However! in 1970 (the band had split by this stage) they all realised that they spent way too much money on the Let it be project to simply let it gather dust. So they gave the tapes to Phil Spector, and he somehow ruined it even more. So! Abbey Road was the last one they recorded, but Let it be was the last one they released. get it? got it.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Technology -loves- Mark

I have now become a fully fledged 21st century human. I have bought a laptop, and it's brilliant. As i sit here typing these words my laptop is downloading all sorts of illegal things (no, not porn) . Infact my laptop is so posh it's not even called a laptop it's called a macbook.

Modest Mouse- We were dead before the ship even sank TAKE II


Yes! We were dead before the ship even sank was released in March. Yes! It did go straight into the American billboard charts at number 1 after selling 130,000 copies in it's first week. So why oh why should i give it a 'review' now? Simple: I didn't reckon it was any use when i first got it, and now i think it's great. If you thought the same i'd recommend you turn up your speakers and have another listen.

New Radiohead songs....

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Arctic Monkeys.....




Deano had his birthday in Malahide on Saturday,
he invited the Arctic Monkeys, and also sent around an email to all his friends. Thousands if people responded, so Deano reckoned he needed someone to organise the finer details of the evening. He thought Aiken promotions would be best. Clearly they were not. Even the birthday boy had to que about half an hour for two poxy pints of Budweiser, then when he needed to pee, he found that the ground was wee sodden. Disgusting. But luckily the Arctic Monkeys played a sublime set. As did The Delorentos, Supergrass and i enjoyed The Coral even if no one else did.
The Arctic Monkeys played:
The View From The Afternoon'
'Brianstorm'
'Still Take You Home'

'Dancing Shoes'
'From The Ritz To The Rubble'
'Teddy Picker'
'This House Is a Circus'
'Fake Tales Of San Francisco'
'Balaclava'
'Old Yellow Bricks'
'You Probably Couldn't See For The Lights But You Were Staring Strai
ght At Me'
'I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor'
'If You Were There, Beware'
'Fluorescent Adolescent'
'Mardy Bum'

'Do Me A Favour'
'When the Sun Goes Down'

'Leave Before the Lights Come On'
'505'

'A Certain Romance'

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

"Oh yeah, it was the end of an era"

Tim Wheeler has announced that "Twilight of the Innocents" is going to be the bands last full length album. From now on they're going to be releasing digital only singles. Apparently Ash having been getting royally pissed off with having to wait to release new material, having completed Twilight if the innocents poor old Wheeler and co had to sit about since January waiting for there record company do get up off there arses and release it.
The lead singer had this to say "We've been one of the best singles bands of the last two decades and we're still younger than a lot of bands on the current scene. I'm excited to push this claim further by dedicating ourselves wholly to the art of the single for the digital age."
So no more Ash albums eh? That's one less thing to worry about then.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Diet of Worms fundraiser.

The Diet of Worms have decided to leave Strollinstown for the evening of the 21st of June 2007 to visit The Garda Club on the South Circular Road to host a fundraising night in order to get some cash together for there trip to Edinburgh in August for the Fringe festival. The Worms have composed multiple questions which will be all put together for one big giant table quiz. For more information check out myspace.com/dietofworms

Advice for all.

I have been alive for 24 years and a half years, exactly! During this time I have learnt absolutely loads of things, some of this information has invaluable, some has been truly awful.
For example one person once told me that during football matches, professionals would put chewing gum underneath their armpits, to keep it safe. As i only about six or seven i chose to believe this. I found out years later, that, that infact was a lie. So in order to keep you safe i feel it only fair to dispense five, important pieces of advice.

1. Stay safe! There is nothing worse than feeling in unsafe in a situation, once i was in a car and felt slightly unnerved by my level of comfort. Yes i was comfortable, but i was too comfortable. That's when i noticed that i wasn't wearing my seat belt. So without any time wasting whatsoever i proceeded to attatch my seat belt. For the rest of the journey i was a little more uncomfortable, but i was safer. And safety should never be underestimated.

2. Learn how to count. Imagine how foolish people would think you are if you couldn't count?

2. Be nice. Ever met somebody who was rude? I bet you didn't like that person did you? Well imagine for a second that that person was you. Yes, how would you feel if somebody thought you were being rude??? So don't be horrible, be nice. It won't cost you a thing.

3. Tell the truth. Telling the truth is a basic piece of advice. sure, we've all told afew lies in the past and may have got away with it, but what if you get caught? I'll give a quick example of concequences of being caught lying. Once i was watching neighbours (bbc 1 17:35 mon-fri) when i noticed that one of the characters had told a lie to his girlfriend. I thought to myself "there's no way he's going to get away with that". Sure enough two weeks later Beth found out and dumped Charlie almost straight away. So there you are: honesty, truly the best policy.

4. Be careful with your money. Money is great if used properly. It's easy to spend but hard to earn. A great example of this would be the Roman empire. Maintaining an army to defend the border of the empire from barbarian attacks was a constant drain on the government. Military spending left few resources for other vital activities, such as providing public housing and maintaining quality roads and aqueducts. Frustrated Romans lost their desire to defend the empire. The empire had to begin hiring soldiers recruited from the unemployed city mobs or worse from foreign counties. such an army was not only unreliable, but very expensive.The emperors were forced to raise taxes frequently which in turn led again to increased inflation.

5. Take fun seriously. Almost everyone enjoys having fun.I, for one, have fun almost twice a day.That's enough for me. But other people have fun almost twenty times (maybe more i am yet to count) a day! That's too much fun. my advice: never become a clown.

New SFA album out on August 27th


The good news for all earthlings is that the Super Furry Animals will be releasing "Hey Venus!" on the 27th of August, and a new single will be out two weeks earlier, on the 13th called "show your hand".
Speaking to nme Gruff had this to say of the album.

"At lot of the songs have the same central theme - following a young woman called Venus moving from a small town to a big metropolis and following her adventures.

"Some songs link up to that story more than others, but some were left off the record, they'll be on the next one, which we're working on already. It started off as a concept, but then we chose songs for their merit rather than their themes."

The tracklisting will be:

'The Gateway Song'
'Runaway'
'Show Your Hand'
'The Gift'
'Neo Consumer'
'Into The Night'
'Baby Ate My Eight Ball'
'Carbon Dating'
'Suckers'
'Battersea Odyssey'
'Wolves'

QOTSA - Era Vulgaris

From the beginning of Era Vulgaris, you quickly realise that you're in for a tough listen. First time round you won't really know what the hell Josh Homme is up to. But after listen number, 6, you may find yourself actually beginning to be turned around to this awkward beast.
The thing that has confused me about Era Vulgaris is " make it wit u " simply because Homme has already released this under his Desert Sessions umberella, so why stick it on the Queens album? Maybe he was just a bit stuck.
The best way to describe this album is that, it's like a Queens of the Stone Age album without the usual sprinklings of singles on it. Good, but could be better.


"Sick, Sick, Sick" Video, and yes, it is sick.
But in a PH Phat way.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Top 5

seeing as how every skinny indie boy/man is influenced by High Fidelity, I think I should my first post 'proper' should be on my top 5 music videos of all time,here we go, in no particular order:

1. Queens of the stone age - Go with the flow




2. Pearl Jam - Do the evolution



3. Unkle featuring Thom Yorke - Rabbit in your headlights



4. White Stripes - Fell in love with a girl



5. Sigur Ros - Svefn-g-englar


That's the lot!

First post

This is my first post of my new blog. I don't really know what I'm going to write about and i suppose this one doesn't really matter because no one is going to read it but me, and more than likely my brother, the king of all things blogworthy John.
So i think I'll leave it at that, and try and think up something a bit special for my next post.