That end of year entry

Well here it is another trip around the sun, another year older and maybe wiser.. So with this trip around the sun come a soon to be end of an era of sorts.. Next week, next weekend, will see the end of dvd shipments from Netflix.. As I said in an earlier entry that they (netflix) has been on probation since the number of discs that were broken had escalated from one per quarter year to one every other time getting them, in  a months time.. That's a fairly huge jump in percentage. But I had decided to end the dvd shipments by the end of the year back in October.  I checked how to go about ending them on Monday and it said I could end them then or wait until the 14th and have this weekend and next with the billing cycle started.. I thought Monday and yesterday going as far as deciding that if they didn't get the discs in return by today that I would cancel my dvd orders today.. But they got them today and so i will go with the final two weeks of discs.. Two reasons why they might not have gotten them on time.. First it's still the holiday, and residual mailing from gift cards and after the holiday sales might slow delivery.. Secondly there has been some snow and COLD weather recently so I figured there would be no way they would get the discs on time.. Guess again..  They got there on time so I will go with the final six.. My final movie from Netflix was Slautherhouse five.. Now it will be Three Days of the Condor.. Another oldie..

The three movies from this past week were

The Book Thief.. When I got the movie I thought it might be one to snooze through.. Turns out it was quite a good movie..  


The next wasn't from this past weekend but rather the week before:

Reclaim was quite the good movie about a husband and wife trying to adopt a child by any means and.. Well that's when the fun begins..

And the "final" disc rental was slaughterhouse five..  Not at all the thriller you might think of with a name like slaughterhouse in it..  More psychological movie, and a really good story set in world war II..

Badge Henry

movies to the holiday

So yesterday I showed my favorite holiday (Christmas) sound track (songs) and tv shows and that would include the Grinch (original tv show, not the remade movie)..  And Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, but of course the Charlie Brown Christmas show trumps them all..  So today I want to give my favorite movie..

Love Actually, my favorite "holiday" movie..  I've said the reason I really like this movie is it was one of the last movies my dad rented from a dvd rental place before he passed away and so the past two or three years I have made it a sort of tradition to watch the movie within a day or two of Christmas.. And that viewing was last night..


Another movie I tried last night as a way to just watch a Christmas movie of sorts was this one...:

Christmas Kiss.. And almost from the very beginning it felt like I had seen the movie before in some form.. Then as I was watching it hit me, although not exact to each scene, it is pretty close to this one:

That's right.. Working Girl..  If you have the chance to dial these two movies up and see if I'm right or if I'm full of it.. And watch Love Actually..  Enjoy your holiday.. Settle in for a long winters hibernation...

Badge Henry

Oh you holiday

My favorite holiday album.. Contains all my favorite Christmas songs done by the late  great Vince Guaraldi .. 

With thi great melancholy song, how I feel at this time every year..

My favorite version of Christmas time is Here after the original of course..


Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year and a fairly nice valentines day and a tolerable  Memorial day.. 4th of july.. labor day.. halloween and then thanks giving and we'll all be back here on the merry go round that is the earth around the sun.. Same place, different time..


Badge Henry..

quater past monkey toe

I tried to replicate the events of about two weeks ago I think that's when it was.. From getting the sandwich although from Runza this time and not Arby's.. Using the ketchup that I made with that habenaro hot sauce very liberally but.. In this case i went in search of something to try to keep the after effect from happening, which what that was I get these what I call popcorn burps that predate a ... well.. a puke session and always has from as far back as my latter days in school.. I could always tell when I was going to be sick, when I burped I could taste what I describe as popcorn.. I went in search of a cure of sorts because the last time I got sick like that I was the worst I had ever been.. Not deadly, but plenty refundage as it were.. So I check a site that I think might give me an idea and that guy has his own podcast and he had gotten a question about a guy who said he had sulfur burps that smelled horrible.. Truth be told mine smell more like a fart than burp.. and his sounded like what I go through, he said he would feel horrible to the point of throwing up and that after that he would eventually feel better..  So when he described his dilemma I took notice and the doctor told him to try that Beano stuff.. So I got some of that and Friday I tried to avert the problem by taking two of the pills then eating the fries with a healthy dose of that ketchup.. The only problem with Fridays experiment was I only had that on the fries, I have the spicey Jack runza and so I didn't need the ketchup on the sandwich part and when we ate that the day I had the Arby's roast beef I put it on fairly heavy and mom had me eat a little bit of her sandwich so that was even more of the ketchup.. So I didn't have nearly the same amount, but it was worth the test.. I felt almost identical this past Friday night with my stomach churning a bit.. But Saturday it wasn't bad, And then Saturday night as I ate a hot pocket I thought well it wasn't a pot pie like that last time but I thought it might be close enough as I ate about the same exact time, a little later than I am used to.. But by the time I had tasted that burp the last time, this past Saturday night I didn't have the same thing happen.. Did the beano stuff work??  Sunday there was just the same normal feeling.. So did it work??  Hard to say. My next test on this will be to try more of that ketchup and see.. Or try to catch myself when that burp taste happens, see if I can catch it this time..   

Badge Henry

Odd

This might not make sense but.. I did entries on the Phudge Nuts site ahead of time, I mean I always have but recently I was only a week ahead, and that was nerve wracking to just be a week ahead because Monday was the day I had to have the next weeks done.. I would add three days so by Wednesday they had to be done but i only got caught twice with the Wednesday day thing being lapsed.. So I decided to get the rest of December done ahead of time, and then yesterday went through January, to the end of January.. Not to worry from the last two weeks on it's nothing but beach dreams in that they are bikini dreams.. And will be that for the first three months of 2015.. At he last week or so of March I will start doing the memes like the other months.. Fun pictures and memes and ... weird shit like that..

Last nights sleep session included either rerun dreams or newly dressed odd shit dreams..  How weird was that?? I can't interpret dreams thankfully but there are times that I wish I had an inkling of what that means.. It felt "ground hog day"-like, or at the very least a deja vu like.. I mean it was totally odd and off for me anyway.. Is it the holiday that is doing that?? I usually try to ignore that it is this time of year to quell disappointment.. Not so much disappointment in what I get as gifts, but hope that I can get something for everybody.. But this year.. This is different because even if I had all the money in the world I wouldn't have a clue what to get anyone.. Just like every year.. My nephew seems like he would be easy to buy for but he has gotten to the age where bigger (read more $$$) means better and that was most evident when for his birthday we got him a fire truck lego set and turned out he wanted the fire station..  That would be a hundred dollars, not a measly twenty.. And he knows the difference in price.. He was telling his grandma what he wanted and I would chime in you want that so it can sit in your room and not be played with??  He can blame that on his little brother now, but it was that way before he was born.. He has a nice collection of toys but can't really play with them anymore..  He would come to his grandmas house and tear out everything in the first few hours of being here, then as he was here this past summer more he would do that less to the point where he would pull something out and start playing with it.. That was so odd to see him actually play with his toys.. But in the past few weeks he has been too busy to be at his grandmas house.. I guess it's the season.. I know mom perks up when he is going to be here, hopefully he can be here over the holiday break.. Hope so..

What was the dream though??  The dream was a hodgepodge of dreams that seem like I saw this before, from the trek out south of a town that seemed like a movie.. The further west I went the more back country Louisiana it seemed.. i've never been in that part of the country and so it being that vivid was strange to me.. I thought sure as shit some doorknob backwoods bum was gonna come out and give me shit and sure enough there was a car broke down, they needed help and then that banjo started to strum.. This can't be good.. but because I had seen this I switched to another dream.. Not as vivid but still strange.. I gotta wake up..  And so I did.. But it seemed to leave a porthole open and I still feel like I did when I was asleep.. What is this weird shit dream about and why do I feel like we just lost our favorite pet??   Odd..


Badge Henry

Does the song remain the same..

When I hear a song that sounds a little like another song I tend to take notice... Today I do an entry about two songs that have a somewhat the same hook but aren't related completely at all.. Check it out. First we have... The Who.. "

Baba O'riley with that trademark VCS3 start to it.. There can be no other song that sounds like it.. But there is.. Sort of..

I use the wording "sort of" to describe it.. This is the Art Of Noise with a quick track called Snapshot.. Yeah maybe  this is a stretch but here is where the song sounds the most alike..

The VCS3 section at the start as described earlier...

The opening part of Snapshot also known as the VCS3 keyboard part and there isn't a VCS3 here because they don't make them anymore and digging one out of the hands of the groups that used them isn't very easy way to go about the effects where any one of several hundred keyboards made now can cause the function those old  dinosaurs could do back in the day...


The next two songs.. First off Swear Your Love by Kenny Loggins

Really a great song from what I thought was his last best albums.. He had issues after this but still was good at writing songs.. Lots of soundtrack songs such as Danger Zone..

The Answer with Tonight.. Alright these two are so unrelated in that Kenny Loggins is from her in the great old U S of A  and The Answer is from Ireland..  So what parts of these songs sound related??  Check it out.. From Mr. Loggins song..:

Actually both songs it is the chorus part of the song..   Different keys of course..

Basically the same rhythm on the guitar, and over all rhythm as well..

Call me odd but they sounded oddly  familiar..  A bit..  Anyway.. You be the judge..

Badge Henry

partners in crime

This video, is from the end of the "low lumens" video shot from Saturday..  My nephew and his lil bro'.. The little guy helps his brother out.. What a guy.. You can almost see the wheels turning in his head.. Smart little guy..

Badge Henry 

Dads train

When we had my dad's head stone with the picture of an old steam engine train there was a reason for that..  He loved the old trains, the steam engine driven trains mostly because of his hometown had a train like that when he grew up.. And as it turns out they still have that same train on the very same line from those days.. Fast forward to some twenty years ago, I think, he wanted a train like that for Christmas and I think either he bought it for himself or mom did buy one for him, at any rate he got one, and I think it was only put together once, that Christmas morning.. And ran that day off and on all day.. I missed that train and through the years we just never put it up again either because of the dog, or.. Whatever the reason.. Well a few years ago I brought it up from storage and mom said no, but we did try the Santa slope thing and it was fun to see it work but ultimately it was taken down because of the space it took.. This year we put that train up.. And the video above is it winding it's way around the Christmas tree...  Merry Christmas Dad..  This ones for you..

Badge Henry

Does the song remain the same

As I have always wanted to do this is a comparison between the same song.. One the studio version and the other live.. Does the song remain the same?  You be the judge.. First off the studio version of the song, and in this case it is the massively powerful yet under looked Shine On You Crazy Diamond from the Wish You Were Here album..

Why the last part of this opus?? Well I really do like this song, the entire album is a materpiece beyond belief.. I liked dark side of the moon, who doesn't.. But the entire album Wish You Were Here is a testament to the will of a band that got what they had wanted through all those years of trial and tribulations.. Fame beyond all belief, super stardom and yet they wanted to remain anonymous, to stay unrecognizable when they stepped out on stage, even to the point where they could be amongst the crowd and then step literally on the stage and start to play.. This part, part nine,  or part ix as it is listed on the album, is the winding down part.. Part i-v is the crank it up parts.. Part nine is the wind down, the slow down to where if you looped the album, it would wind down into wind up and perpetual play, over and over into infinity..  The same thing was accomplished on Dark Side of the Moon as well as The Wall..

Where the live version, is it the same song?? Yes quite but live is even more powerful in it's wind down, with the dual guitars of David Gilmour and Snowy White.. So much power and grace on a quick four minute version of Shine On You Crazy Diamond part ix..  So impressed with the live version of the entire album of Wish You Were Here, a bootleg but still worth having.. Very few groups can pull off playing an entire album from start to finish, but the Floyd could do it and did from the Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall.. Four of the greatest albums to ever be released.. In a feat that was never accomplished before and will likely never happen again..

Badge Henry

Lost then found

Close call on the other blog as I came withing a day of not having an entry there.. This going from week to week is tricky.. But I try to go Monday to Monday on the entries but this week I knew last week I had ten days ahead.. So I knew I could wait until yesterday to do entries.. I'm gonna spend next Monday doing the rest of December and then get through spring because I have so many pictures of women in swimsuits from last years (this years) swimsuit editions of Sports Illustrated.. I have so many pictures to choose from that I could easily do the next three years exclusively with just hose pictures and still have enough left over to do five more.. YEARS..   sick I know..

I am trying t complete the Pink Floyd box set of fan supported bootleg material.. Some of that includes yet another mashup like the Dark Side of A Dream that was done back in 2003..  I found it and was stunned.. The latest was done when Syd Barrett died and it is called Passage.. Along with the video Truth and Dillusion from the curios collages a nice set of music and videos to add to the set.. Also it will include as many bootlegs that I have had but want them to be less repeats.. Some can be repeated verbatim  and the only thing changed might be the fade in part as well as the art.. How you might call someone out on this is beyond me.. If I tried that I would be caught and told about.. 

Trying to set the bootleg concerts that I have.. Up to June I was getting boots on a regular basis but then my site went toes up.. Then in August they were going again and I got  a shit ton of concerts again..  Some of which are really impressive.. But there are a ton, and so now.. I've gotta unclog the hard drive of the computer..

The saga that was getting a tablet for my mom.. Truth is I might could have gone the easy route and tld her.. Back in June mom had an issue with the laptop computer as when I came down stairs she was all but freaking out.. The computer was smoking.. Why was it smoking, we don't allow that stupid behaviour from anyone visiting and this computer was smoking??  what gives??  So I look at it and it is toast.. Burned up completely.. Well that's what she was hoping was the case and so I went along with her on this.. Next day I start the search for a new computer.. I see these Chrome books, and start to seriously look at them.  Asking around I found absolutely NO one uses them here.. Why?? Are they backwards or something??  So I search for a few days and find this little RCA laptop.. Not really a laptop but more of a tablet.. But it looked like a laptop, with the detachable keyboard.. Really cool looking and the reviews were good and the price was good too.. But then in the meantime of me looking for a replacement computer I dick with her old laptop and get it to work again.. Don't ask me how, I'm not computer savvy at all but I do tinker with electronics and have since I can remember.. And I got it to work.. The thinking for me on this was lets see how long it will work.. Well it still is working but it has issues and mm got frustrated with it enough so that a few times she was about to toss it across the room.. So this past Sunday she threw in the towel.. She gave up on it.. I worked on it a little but she has given up on it..

The Monday (cyber Monday) happened and I get these emails from Amazon and Walmart and everywhere that is supporting cyber Monday sales.. And I ignore them.. Then I check Amazon.. Wow they have a lot of stuff but the sales don't impress me.. So I toss those.. Then about five in the early evening I chance the walmart email.. Just hours left on the sale.. I open it and then think well what about a computer for mom.. I check and there is that RCA tablet and the price is half what it was.. Seriously, WOW... And so I check the reviews on it and they remain upbeat on this thing.. I thought for about an hour, since I already did the research I knew it was a good thing to get.. So I go to get it in the checkout and then as I'm about to push the order link I stop.. Why get his??  Mom sounded adamant about being done with the computer..

Then after another half an hour, after supper, I went back to the walmart.com site and continued with the order and went to site to store.. I've done this q few times with things over the years, and this was no different.. But then the options were different this time.. I was wanting to get this without her knowing it.. The previous years I would order something from a dot com site it was with a credit card.. Guess what you're getting for Christmas this year??  Yep, check you credit card bill..  This year I wanted it to be a complete surprise and so they have the options listed and cash was one of them.. Cash??  What's this then??  Well turns out if you want to pay cash you can BUT.. There's a catch.. You have 48 hours to pay at the store or you lose the option and in the case of this tablet computer thing the next day the price was still on sale but it wasn't as good of a deal at 119 greenbacks compared with the $89.. So you can see that back in June the price was 139 dollars.. Quite a change in price there..  So I choose the option of cash and everything fell into place..  I get to Walmart .. the next day (after calling my niece to find out the way I thought was the right way).. And then the saga began..

And what a saga  it truly was.. I arrived and had to take a prescription to the pharmacy so.. I then make my way back to the site to store.. The best part of this is there was someone back there otherwise it could have taken longer, I swear I am invisible when I am back there most times.. But there was already another customer there.. She was picking something up.. The best part about Walmart is being able to do the site to store or even getting to pick up your order out there which might seem strange to say (well why not have the order sent to your door??  They don't hardly do that anymore, it usually goes to the post office which was great before they gut the times the office is open from 8 in the morning to four in the evening to 8 in the morning to noon.. Get there or bee screwed..)  So after the lady got her xbox games I was up next.. I tell them I'm there to pay for the site to store order I placed the night before and the lady looked at me like I was wanting her first born..  As she fumbles with the book of procedures on how to do this she calls her superior and anyone that stopped by gave their two cents on how it might be done.. There was no cure for the ailment.. Then the saving grace happened, another person, a woman, needed to do a site to store but not the regular way.. She had pushed cash option as well.. Only thing is she had the printout.. I only had the number copied by my pen.. She had the page from there and on that page it said take this to any register to complete the transaction.. So they go out to a cash register to try their luck and low and behold they figured it out.. The customer that had the printout apologized for cutting in front of me and I told her there was no problem there, she had the golden ticket to figure it out, I was greatful she showed up..  I thanked her.. Anyway long story long we got it figured out but I was glad I was there alone.. Keeping this a secret was almost not an option as I was thinking that I might have to abandon the idea, and go and tell mom i tried to do this as a secret but.. Oh well.  Now I have to hope she doesn't get a wild hair and want a new computer before Christmas.. Then I would have to tell her just woahh hold on there little missy.. Maybe Santa is bringing you one..


Badge Henry

That's new..

So I got the new Pink Floyd album this past Friday..  My overall reasoning for waiting two weeks beyond it's initial release date was simple, I wanted to see what people were saying about it before i bought it, not that that swayed weather I would buy it.. I was going to buy it, I knew I would no matter what anyone said good or bad and there were plenty of both reviews in Amazon and anywhere else the album was sold, ranging from "there are no vocals" to speak of to it's a brilliant masterpiece.. I could have listened to the entire album on YouTube but chose not to.. I could have gotten it via pirated download from any one of hundreds of sites but.. Again I chose to have a hard copy rather than get it in mp3 file format.. The booklet was not that important but it was.. The sound of the album did have a lot of the Division Bell sound running through it, both the keyboards and guitar parts were that way.. I had said when they were remixing for the release of the Division Bell that I thought they should put the extras tracks on there, you know, the tracks started for the follow up to Division Bell. Little did I know that as i was writing those very words they were working on their final album, and i had heard the rumours that people had seen David Gilmour in the studio working on songs that they assumed would be for his next solo album but were in fact being worked for what is being called the true final Pink Floyd album.. I almost said record and it would apply here because this was released in vinyl as well as several digital forms..   So which did I end up getting??  The record form is a double album, but getting it in record would be counter intuitive.. I would like to get it in record but.. I went to Walmart to see if they had it there.. They did, but it was a strange feeling that at the price it was marked it seemed high.. But it wasn't but I knew the deluxe version was the one to get and walmart didn't have it.. I ordered the deluxe version 2 disc set compact disc with digital video disc (cd+dvd)  which the dvd has the album in three audio formats, PCM, Dolby Digital and the best you can get DTS..  Blur ray has a higher standard but you can't tell it, very few people can tell the difference..

The back side of the box, as you can see side one through four.. The dvd with the extra cuts and the videos ...  very good indeed.. And listen to it more than once before you make up your mind. Good album or not it really is worth the listen.. My favorite song right now is Nervana which wasn't on the album proper but was on the video portion of the dvd extras..  Evrika is very good as well and the over all sound made me want to listen to Division Bell again.. Is this the end of Pink Floyd??  Who knows..

Badge Henry

(P.S. There is an area of the album where it reminds me a little of Tangerine Dream.. A very small area, and since it is all mostly vocal free it could all remind me of Tangerine Dream, but it doesn't.. There is just a short passage in the first part or side one as it is listed.. Somewhere in that area, however having said that upon future listenings I might not hear that.. And that is usually the way that it is for me, I can pick out parts of what I hear upon the first listening but after that I might not hear it again.. It's why i like to listen over time.. )