Thanks to a colleague who I shall refer to only as "Mr. Picky", I've just been playing with decimals.

I know they're the slowest numeric data type, but we're talking XML and xs:decimal, and classes created thereof.

Mr. Picky's complaint was that of all of the values (prices, in fact) in the XML file, some were formatted with 2 decimal places, and some with none, and he'd like to see them all with 2.

Now, after a bit of fiddling about, I couldn't see any obvious reason why we had these differences.  The prices all originated in the same fields in the database, and they all ended up as XML attributes declared as xs:decimal, and passed through VB.Net classes as Decimal variables.

The heart of the issue is VB.Net's Decimal handling.  By default a Decimal has zero decimal places, but if it acquires any along the way then it will keep them.  Some of my values had spent part of their life as a string (something like "£12.34", and don't ask why!) and some were just plain Decimals.  All the attributes where the values had been strings had their 2DP, as they'd been parsed from strings like "12.00" and so when the VB.Net class went ToXml() they appeared as "12.00", but those that were never strings stayed as "12".

My solution?  (and I ain't proud of this)

Dim decimalWith2DecimalPlaces As Decimal = decimalValueFromDb * Decimal .Parse( "1.00" )

I take Scribble’s challenge!

Charlie Brooker - I agree with Scribbles.  The weekly column I look forward to.

Tom Waits - Wish he's play live over here more often, but at least I saw him in Hammersmith a few years ago.  Genius.

Richard Dawkins - If he didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Stephen Fry - No comment required.

Terry Gilliam - Brazil is one of my favourite movies.

The Coen Brothers (can I count them as 1 person?) - So is Fargo.  And The Big Lebowski.

Iain (M!) Banks - My favourite author.  It's been a while since he did anything I liked as much as Use of Weapons, or The Bridge, but I still buy everything in hardback as soon as it's out.

Howe Gelb - Who introduced me to the whole Americana thing.  Giant Sand, Calexico, Lambchop, The Handsome Family, the divine Neko Case, M Ward, Sparklehorse, Jim White, and so on and on...

David Simon - The Wire.  The best TV show ever made.

Bill Gates - Ok, evil empire and all that.  But he's indirectly responsible for my income for the last decade, and whatever the faults of, say, Vista (from which I'm writing this), I still can't get on with Linux (and can't, frankly, be bothered to put the requistite time in).

An interesting discussion on The Quackometer: Is Chiropractic X-raying Illegal?

V and I went to a "What is chiropractic" talk in town before xmas - I can't say I was exactly impressed. I may blog about it in more detail later.

It seems entirely appropriate to me that the magazine that was given to us at the end of the presentation, and the association behind it, are known as Whopper.  Sorry, I mean wopaa.

I knew it!

I've just bought the Netgear Wall-Plugged HD Ethernet Starter Kit from Novatech (the product page is here). For the first time since I've been using them I was bit disappointed in Novatech's service: the website showed 8 in stock available to collect from Reading withing 24 hours, and it stayed that way until I got the email telling me it was available to collect, 4 working days later. I know it's only a few days more, but it annoys me that the stock availability message was inaccurate. I'm sure it won't stop me using them, mind you...

Anyway, the kit contains a pair of HDX101 ethernet-over-powerline adapters. The HD part of the name is meant to tell you that they can provide enough bandwidth for streaming high-def movies, as the adapters have a (theoretical) maximum speed of 200Mbps.

I had been finding that while I could stream standard def movies over my wifi link, high def was impossible, and it's just not practical to route ethernet cable between my office (where the ADSL line comes in, and the Windows Home Server sits) and the living room, so I thought I'd give the latest generation of powerline adapters a go.

I have to say I'm impressed. Set-up is mindlessly easy: just plug them in and you're away. High def (720p) movies are streaming flawlessly - I haven't got any 1080p movies to try, but when I get hold of something I'll give it a go.

The control panel app included on the installation CD allows you to check the speeds you're getting, and it's showing that I'm getting 72Mbps from my server to my laptop, and 54Mbps in the other direction. Yes, this is a lot less than the notional 200Mbps, but then I'm not using gigabit ethernet yet, so my maximum was always going to be 100Mbps anyway. Since gigabit switches have become so cheap these days I'll probably pick one up and see if that makes a difference - though I'll need a new card in my homeserver as the on-board network card is 10/100.

The control panel app also allows you to set QoS priority, even to the level of selecting a specific port, so if you're using it mainly for streaming media you can tune it to match. The default setting appeared to be priority for UDP, which seems fine so far for me.

When copying a large file from a WHS share to my Vista laptop I was getting speeds of 3MB/s reported by TeraCopy, which isn't exactly blazing, but still better than I got over wireless. I can probably get that rate up with QoS tuning, but I'll not bother as it will mainly be used for media streaming anyway.

So: highly recommended!

As if to make up for Scarlett Johansson's Waitsian waste of space, Zooey Deschanel's album with M. Ward under the name She & Him is an absolute delight of summery pop. I've been listening to Volume 1 quite a lot recently, and I'm even happier to find that Aqarium Drunkard has a live set from this year's Newport Folk Festival available to download.

So it's true: not all actors should avoid the recording studio. Helps when you have someone as good as M. Ward behind you, mind...

Calexico's new album Carried To Dust is due on September 9th on Touch and Go records.  A taster can be found here: Two Silver Trees

From what I've read so far, and listening to this track, it's sounding good, and a move back to something more like their core sound than Garden Ruin's more mainstream sound (mainstream in a very relative way, obviously!).

I've got my tickets to see them at The Forum in October - they must be getting close to being the band I've seen the most, and I've yet to be disappointed...

New albums are due later this year from Giant Sand and Lambchop, too, so all in all it's a good year for alt-country/americana/whatever-the-hell-it-is... (no, I've never been able to answer the question "what kind of music do they make" about any of these bands!)

Bonus tracks:

Lambchop's "Slipped Dissolved And Loosed"

For a free download of Giant Sand's "Increment of Love" go to http://www.yeproc.com/stash, sign in (or sign up, all you need is an email address!), and enter the code PROVISIONS.

I don't tend to make political or religious posts on my blog. Let's be honest, I don't make many posts on any subject on my blog! So, please feel free to ignore this post.

However, I wanted to post on this subject. P Z Myers, the author of the blog Pharyngula and biologist at the University of Minnesota, Morris, has (intentionally) got himself into the cross-hairs of Bill Donohue's Catholic League, for the (according to Donohue) heinous crime of desecrating a cracker. The back-story can be found quite easily on Pharyngula, and many other places around the web, so I won't go into it here.

Myers has been taking a lot of abuse for his threats against crackers, with many idiots describing his behaviour as inciting hatred of Catholics, and calling for his dismissal from his position at UMM. As you may be able to tell from my tone so far, I'm entirely on Myers side in this. It is not inciting hatred to say that someone's beliefs are nonsense. It is not inciting hatred to say that they're idiots for believing something ridiculous. It is not inciting hatred to damage a cracker.

It may be inciting ridicule, or scorn, or contempt. But so what? There's no opinion, belief, or practice that people shouldn't be able to treat with ridicule, scorn or contempt. Someone may fervently and honestly believe that the cracker in question is the actual body of their god. Who knows, David Icke may believe the nonsense he spouts as well. I'm also sure that plenty of Daily Mail readers believe the tripe printed in their paper. And I don't see why any of them should be exempt from having the piss taken or their beliefs mocked. No one should.

I completely fail to see why a religious belief is priviledged over any other belief (and there are plenty of far more eloquent discussions on this subject at Butterflies & Wheels than I can make). I see no difference at all between saying that the Bible is a dangerous book, stuffed full of appalling immorality, and providing a lousy guide for how to behave, and making the same statement about the Daily Mail or the Independant, say. I see no difference at all between saying that people are idiots for having religious beliefs and saying that people are idiots for being Tories, Greens, or Socialists.

I'm also with Dawkins in his point that it makes no more sense to talk about a Christian child than it does a Conservative child; both are systems of belief that people either absorb as they're growing up (and in many cases fail to throw off), or they're belief systems that they adopt as adults. In either case, it's a very different thing to an innate characteristic such as the colour of their skin, or their gender, or their sexual orientation, and certainly shouldn't be protected in the same way through anti-discrimination legislation.

Anyway, vent over. This blog shall now return to its normal program of sporadic posting on non-controversial subjects.

I can't believe I got a couple wrong...

Via Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

Two different bands, two different sets, two very different atmospheres...

On Friday night V and I, and a couple of our friends, went to see Bon Jovi at Twickenham Stadium.  As you'd hope, it was very much a greatest hits set, kicking off with Living on a Prayer, and containing almost everything from the Crossroads greatest hits album.

Bon Jovi photo by beckygarratt

I couldn't say I was a huge fan; I know the obvious hits, and since V is a fan I'm getting to know more of the album tracks, but I could sing along with at least the choruses on easily more than half the set, so I was quite happy!

Even though I far prefer Springsteen as an artist, I'd have to admit that I enjoyed Bon Jovi's show even more that I did Bruce's last month at the Emirates: the sound was better, the stage set better and more interesting, and the setlist itself was better (even though I think Magic is a better E-Street album than any he's done for many years, it all seems a bit Bruce-by-numbers to me - give me the early stuff any day!).

And then there was last night.

Lou Reed.

Performing Berlin, in its entirety, at the Royal Albert Hall.

Slated on its release, Berlin has proved to be Reed's masterpiece, and its live performance lived up to every expectation I had.  I had wondered if it would be as moving and harrowing live as it is on record, and the sense of release after the cathartic ending of Sad Song let me know that it had been...  the rest of the audience seemed to agree with me: the performance earned a standing ovation.

At first I thought the sound was a bit on the politely-quiet side, but when the full band played that certainly wasn't the case.  Behind the band was a simple set (with greenish walls!), onto which was projected images and films to complement the music - so I now know what Caroline looks like.

Reed was joined by a huge band that included a 12-piece choir, 8-piece orchestra, his current touring band, and some faces from the past: Michael Rathke and Steve Hunter on guitar, Rob Wasserman on upright bass, Fernando Saunders on a selection of bass, and Tony "Thunder" Smith on drums.  Steve Bernstien and Jane Scarpantoni provided keyboards and backing vocals.

Berlin took about an hour to perform, and after a short break the band came back for an encore of Satellite of Love, Rock and Roll, and his new song The Power of the Heart (which can be downloaded over here).

Got to get the DVD when it comes out!

Lou Reed photo by joshkritter

Just a couple of CD storage ideas for our new house... All from Watsons on the Web

MS0618

VICTORIA - CD / DVD / VIDEO Multimedia Cabinet

£129

Louvre fronted free standing multimedia cabinet with walnut finish and adjustable shelves. Doors open up and contain even more storage space. Can hold up to 600 CDs or 290 DVDs or a combination of CDs, DVDs and Videos. Has 4 castors for easy manoeuvrability.
• SIZE: 102 (H) x 62 (W) x 34 (D) cm
• MATERIALS: Particle Board & PVC Veneer
• COLOUR: Walnut
• Easy Self Assembly
• HEAVY ITEM: £19.95 delivery charge

MS9300

ARIZONA - Glass CD, DVD, Media Storage Shelves

£129

Slimline free standing media / storage unit with 9 fully adjustable clear glass shelves and chunky beech effect modern frame. Designed for DVDs, books, CDs, videos and general display - one of the most stylish media / display towers we have seen! Capacity up to 760 CDs or 350 DVDs.
Wall securing strap supplied.
• SIZE: 161.5 (h) x 87 (w) x 16 (d) cm
• MATERIAL: Hollowboard - PVC Foil / 8mm tempered safety glass
• COLOUR: Beech
• Easy Self Assembly

Versatile free standing open cabinet with 9 adjustable shelves. Holds up to 760 CDs or 378 DVDs or 150 videos or a combination of these. Includes wall safety strap.
Available in Beech, Pine, Oak or Mahogany finishes.

• SIZE: 160.5 (H) x 88 (W) x 24 (D) cm
• MATERIALS: Particle board & MDF
• COLOUR: Mahogany, Beech, Pine, Oak
• Easy Self Assembly
• This unit is best with mix of media as there is a possiblilty of slight shelf bowing depending on environment and humidity - the shelves will not break as they are strong enough to withstand heavy loads.

Scott Hanselman has come up with a way of describing us all... read about it here.

I'm this:

Yes, I know, I'm teh lame.

From the ever-marvelous XKCD:

I've found a torrent of the show I was at on Dime (now I've managed to get my login back!) here.

Well, that was good.  Interesting set - shame he didn't play Cinnamon Girl, Cortez, or Rocking In The Free World - but wow, what a show.  I'd like to give a good kicking to whoever it was thought that clapping along (out of time) to Old King was a good idea..!

It felt like 2 gigs - 1 hour of acoustic material, then 1:20 of electric.  Bargain!

I've seen his extended guitar work-outs described as being thought of as transcendental by some and interminable by others - count me in the former category. No Hidden Path isn't my favourite of these, but there's something mesmerising and elemental in his playing that keeps me from ever getting bored, even if I find myself drifting a bit - and wondering if the big yellow light on the right of the stage was meant to symbolise the sun?

Set list from Sugar Mountain:

1. From Hank To Hendrix
2. Ambulance Blues
3. Kansas
4. A Man Needs A Maid
5. Try
6. Harvest
7. After The Gold Rush
8. Old King
9. Love Art Blues
10. Heart Of Gold
11. Out On The Weekend
12. Old Man
    ---
13. The Loner
14. Dirty Old Man
15. Spirit Road
16. Down By The River
17. Hey Hey, My My
18. Roll Another Number
19. Oh, Lonesome Me
20. The Believer
21. Powderfinger
22. No Hidden Path
    ---
23. Fuckin' Up

Neil Young, tonight, at the Hammersmith Apollo.

I can't wait.

Since I now have a shiny new iPod Classic 160GB*, and since iTunes is now offering DRM-free music at decent bit-rates, and since I didn't want to wait for delivery from the OW OM Store in the US, I've just purchased Rainer's Westwood Sessions Volume I.

I've got everything else of Rainer's that I can find (all his CDs, mainly bought from Glitterhouse), and the two live recordings at Archive.org, so it's no real suprise that I think it's great! 

Rainer was a Tucson-based guitarist, master of dobro and slide guitar, who played with among others Giant Sand, Robert Plant, Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top - see Rainer's The Texas Tapes), and released a handful of recordings before his tragic death in 1997.  The website at www.raineroftucson.com seems to have gone, but a biog can be found at Wikipedia.

The Westwood Sessions were recently found and dusted off by Jim Blackwood, and release on Howe Gelb's OW OM label.  They're unreleased tapes from sessions Rainer did between Barefoot Rock and Worried Spirits, and contain some real gems.  It's a very bluesy record, including songs such as J B Lenoir's Voodoo Music, but for me the highlights are Rainer's own songs, especially Zealots Serve Dogmas and I Am A Sinner.

The last word goes to Howe:

* I've been waiting for an MP3 player that has sufficient capacity for ages... I used to have an Empeg Car with 70GB of discs in it, and had filled that by the time I changed my car 2 years ago (though I never got around to putting it in this car), so I've been wanting something big enough to take everything I've got...  Now, as a car player the iPod is just rubbish compared to the Empeg.  I'm using it with a tape adapter so the sound is... well, ok at best, and I really do miss the flexible playlist structure of the Empeg.  And the ease of use in the car.  And the extra features like filters.  And being able to see what's playing all the time.  The radio never worked properly, mind you!  But, overall, I'm very happy with the iPod.

Here's a quick techy post to start the New Year...

In SQL Management Studio you can save your results pane as a CSV file. All you need to do is select the grid, right-click, and select "Save Results as...". Nice and simple (and a quick way of getting your data out of the DB).

However (and there just had to be a "however", didn't there?), the CSV file that's saved can't be read by the .Net StreamReader object, as the Encoding can't be detected (it's Encoding.Unicode) automatically. Initially, I did try to detect it using the BOM (Byte Order Mark) of the file, but there isn't one. In the end, I checked that the 1st and 3rd characters were value zero, which for the files I'm interested in is perfectly valid, and if so explicitly set the Encoding to Unicode. If you do this, make sure you set detectEncodingFromByteOrderMarks to False.

Updated 2008-01-18:  And now, just to annoy me (it's a conspiracy, I tell you!), the file has miraculously acquired a BOM: FF FE, which according to Wikipedia means it's UTF-16 little-endian. Not sure if the endian-ness (or whatever the term is) makes a difference, as Encoding.Unicode still works.

I've no idea where this BOM has come from - does anyone know if SQL Management Studio was updated through Windows Update recently?

Somehow I had managed to let my hosting account expire.  However, after paying the invoice and asking nicely, those kind people at WebHost4Life restored everything...

Well, what's new?

I've got tickets for the following gigs:

2008-03-06 - Neil Young (Hammersmith Apollo)
2008-03-19 - The Feeling (Shepherds Bush Empire)
2008-05-30 - Bruce Springsteen (Emirates Stadium)
2008-06-27 - Bon Jovi (Twickenham)

...which should all be fun!  I may have a spare ticket for Neil Young - depending if PH still wants it.

I was given The Traveling Wilburys Collection for xmas - great couple of albums, especially Volume One.

V and I are off up to the parent's place this weekend - it's my Dad's birthday the week after, so we're going out for dinner.  Just for a change we're taking V's car rather than mine - it will be the longest journey the car has ever made, so should blow away a few cobwebs.

Right, that's it.  Update done.  Back to work...

A couple of weeks ago I had the honour and great pleasure of playing one of the finest golf courses in the world: Royal Troon. We've been talking about it for years, as Alan's father, Jim, is a member there, so we were able to get signed in by a member (which makes life a *lot* cheaper and easier!).

We played the Old Course on the Sunday, and the Portland Course on the Monday. Fortunately the rain held off when we played the Old Course, and while I had a terrible round (I don't even want to think about my score!), it was glorious. The Monday was a different story - horizontal rain! Still enjoyable, in its way, but if I'd been anywhere else I'd have called it a day at the turn.

We stayed at the Piersland Hotel, which I can thoroughly recommend, even if they didn't let us have the sound up on the telly for the England-France rugby match...

More photos are available on my Flickr photostream.

Last night I paid my first visit to The Luminaire, "London's most agreeable live music venue", which isn't too far from the truth, and saw what his support acts were referring to as Howeapalooza (well, we had Howe-fest, so why not?), the final stop on Howe Gelb's latest tour.

The Luminaire is on Kilburn High Road, and seems to be easy enough to get to by tube, though last night I drove.  Parking was simple enough - I found somewhere round the corner which was unrestricted after 6:30pm.  I do prefer to drive to gigs in London if I can - the inability to drink is more than outweighed by normally getting home a lot quicker and with a seat all the way..!

There were two opening acts, the first being Kate Maki, who played a great little set, accompanied at various times by Lonna Kelley (the second support act), and Thøger Lund from Howe's band.  I really enjoyed her set - enough so that I've just bought FLAC downloads of her first two albums from the Zunior website (only around a tenner for both, which is a hell of a lot better than iTunes manage!).  I've only heard the most recent so far, The Sun Will Find Us, which is an interesting listen.  At heart it's a folk album, I'd say, but with splashes of horns to add colour.  She's certainly someone to keep an eye on, and I'll definitely seek her out when she tours again over here.

I first saw Lonna Kelley when she played with Howe at the Barbican earlier this year, where V and I thought she was doing a startled-deer-in-the-headlights thing in front of a crowd that size.  After seeing her in the tiny Luminaire, I'm no longer so sure.  She seems to be quite diffident, or maybe shy, in front of the audience.  Anyway, she and her band played for the better part of an hour, joined for the last number by Howe, Thøger and Kate.  To be honest, I'm not really a fan.  I thought the set was just a bit... dull, really.  I'm not sure what it is that puts me off.  Her band were great, especially the guitarist, but it just never took off.  I don't think there's enough variation for me to keep interested, and her voice, good as it is, begins to wear me out after a while.  It's a quiet, breathy, thing that leave me wishing she'd just throw her head back and put some force into it all...

Then we had Howe.  Ramblin' Howe Gelb, as Kate called him.  I think we probably had about 25% anecdote to 75% music (surely Howe hasn't reached his anecdotage just yet?)  Anyway, the intimate set was heavy with material from his latest release, Upside Down Home 2007.  Thøger Lund provided the only accompaniment, on upright bass, until the very end of the set, when they were joined by the Kate and Lonna. 

Howe claims to not have enough time to write any songs any more, not that he seems to be slowing down his rate of record release, but instead draws on his bank of songs (which he described as a bank that has only one customer, so won't be running out any time soon)

I can't remember much of the setlist, but we certainly had The Hangin' Judge, Down On Town (originally from Valley of Rain, the first Giant Sand album, which Howe said they were remastering for a 25th anniversary reissue.  Well, he said they were removing some of the 80's production, anyway...), Seldom Matters, and Shiver ("our Coke commercial").  For the encore (not that he left the stage), we had Paradise Hereabouts and Get To Leave from the Sno Angel album, with backing vocals provided by Kate and Lonna (and, half-heartedly, from the audience).  While playing Get To Leave it seemed like Howe didn't want to do so, segueing into Ring of Fire, something else (the name of which escapes me, and which I can't believe I've forgotten), and ending up with a few choruses of Hey Jude.

Then the set was over, and I left for the drive back to Reading (which was fast enough to make up for the drive along the M40 getting there!)

I'm not doing much better at the whole posting regularly thing, am I?

Anyway, I thought I'd mention a couple of albums I'm listening to quite a lot at the moment, Justin Nozuka'sHolly and Emilana Torrini'sThe Fisherman's Woman. They're both people I've seen as support acts (and don't we all just love discovering new music that way??): Justin Nozuka supporting John Cale when I saw him in the Fez Club in Reading, and Emiliana Torrini was one of the acts at this year's Howe Gelb & Friends event at the Barbican. 

Nozuka's album is a great singer-songwriter type of thing, though he's a lot more interesting than most I've heard lately (not thinking of Blunt in particular, of course!).

Emiliana Torrini has (as far as I can tell) two albums out.  The first, Love in the Time of Science is a more electronic album, where Fisherman's Woman is a largely acoustic affair.  You may have already heard one of her tracks at the end of the second Lord of the Rings film - she's the vaguely Bjork-y sounding one who did Gollum's Song.  Fisherman's Woman isn't very Bjork-like, but there are similarities in their voices, something about the slightly breathy sound and the phrasing.

I'm looking forward to next week: Howe Gelb (supported by Lonna Kelly, who was also at the Barbican gig) at The Luminaire in Kilburn.  Should be a great evening.  Can't decide whether to drive or take the train, though...

Good grief, it's been a while....

Ok, my first new post in ages should be something interesting, noteworthy, possibly controversial, so I shall choose: my new phone!

Maybe not the *most* fascinating subject, but there are a couple of things that it's probably worth posting about. First off, it's an HTC Touch, and I think it's great. From the review I've seen there seems to be disappointment that the processor isn't faster, and there are times when it could certainly do with a bit more speed, but it's a huge improvement over my last handset, and seems perfectly happy most of the time. The only problem I've had so far is with City Time Alarms, which was my preferred alarm program on my old handset. Unfortunately, on the Touch when this program is installed it throws a whole bunch of errors on startup, and generally misbehaves. I've contacted the authors about this, and with any luck they'll come up with a fix.

The main point of this post is the weather. To be specific, the weather module in the Touch. You select your city from the list, and it runs off to the web to find your weather report. Very nice, useful, and even rather pretty. However, since the default list for the UK appears to contain Edinburgh, London, Manchester and Plymouth, and not a whole lot else, it's of limited use.

Now, the list of cities is kept in the HH_0409_WeatherCities.xml file, located in the Windows directory on the phone. To add new cities we must edit this file. However, it appears to be a read-only system file, and the built-in File Explorer won't let you edit it. However, the Pocket version of Total Commander will, so that's what I'm using. To add a city, you need to insert a line like this:

The next question is where to find city details - you can't just put in the name of any town and expect it to work. A little digging on the web told me that AccuWeather was the source of the weather information, and a look at that site shows that there is a pre-set list of cities for different countries. Go to the AccuWeather site, and use the "Find your local forecast" feature and you can see which cities are available. A bit of "view source" and we can see that the list of cities is populated by an ASP page (change the reqion and country to suit yourself): http://www.accuweather.com/includes/ajax-functions/favoriteCities.asp?region=EUR&country=UK

Ok, so now we have a list of cities for our country. We now need to get them in the correct format. The AccuWeather feed looks like this:

and we need this:

A bit of search and replace should do the trick! I now copied this file, HH_0409_UK_Cities.xml (8.86 KB) , to my Touch, made a backup of the original list (HH_0409_WeatherCities.xml (24.62 KB)), and replaced the original list of cities with my list of UK cities. Done!

Note to self: try and remember to blog a little more often!

From (where else?) XKCD.

I've just noticed the Amazon link that's been added for Green Earrings in the set list in the previous post, a link to (what else?) a pair of green earrings. Hmm... Maybe I ought to limit it to music, books and movies... On the other hand, maybe someone reading this will be suddenly taken with the desire to buy a pair of green earrings, and who am I to prevent such a thing from happening (especially if I get a few quid in commission!) Actually, thinking about it as I type, I imagine this post will contain lots of links to green earrings...

On Saturday night, I saw Steely Dan play the Hammersmith Apollo. Superb, wonderful, gig!

The support act was the Sam Yahel Trio (there were 4 of them), who played a few jazz tunes. To be honest, they bored me, so we left after 3 numbers and went back to the bar.

The Dan came on at 9pm, played a storming set until 10:40pm, then a 2 song encore (by which time almost everyone was on their feet). Wonder if there are any decent boots of this tour kicking around??

Set list:
  Time Out Of Mind
  Godwhacker
  Bad Sneakers
  Two Against Nature
  Hey Nineteen
  Haitian Divorce
  Peg
  Dirty Work
  Home At Last
  Green Earrings
  Josie
  Chain Lightning
  Aja
  Kid Charlemagne
  
  FM
  My Old School

Photo linked from the Steely Dan website.

I don't seem to have posted anything this week, so I feel I really ought to rectify that... So, here's a few words about some Visual Studio Addins that I use regularly.

1. GhostDoc

This addin helps you generate source documentation. It's such a faff writing what are often no more than restatements of the name of the function, but this addin takes care of a lot of it for you. It's written for C#, but can be used for VB.Net as well (to an extent).

For example, the VB.Net function:

gets the comments:

2. CodeKeep

An on-line repository for code snippets. Ok, I keep a few on my main website, but with this plugin they're browsable from within Studio.

3. CopySourceAsHTML

This one adds a context menu into Studio that allows you to copy the highlighted text, formatted as HTML, retaining the colour and style information used in Studio. A nice solution to the code colouring problem that those of us with techy blogs have! It's what I've used for the comment snippets above.

N.B. The above tools all work with Visual Studio 2005. I have no idea about other versions!

Life may be cheap, but it seems my corpse would be cheaper still...

Mingle² - Online Dating

Via Pharyngula

Well, that was a pleasant enough show... We got there a little after 8pm, so had missed the first support (The Twilight Sad), but caught most of Ash's set, which was pretty good.

So, Snow Patrol: big, anthemic, lighters-aloft music (well, these days it seems to be "mobile phones aloft", but you get the drift). Heavy on numbers from the current album, a bunch from the last, and only a couple from before that, which isn't exactly a suprise as the band was pretty much unknown until the last album, and you gotta give the punters what they want. And the punters certainly seemed satisfied by what they were given.

The O2 Arena: big, easy to get to and quick to enter, though we had a long walk around the arena to get to door H, but that gave us a chance to see what the dome now contains. What it contains is a Vue cinema, and a bunch of restaurants and bars (of the Nando's and Slug & Lettuce variety - pretty much the same sort of mix as Reading's Oracle, and no doubt any number of other recent developments). The arena itself is quite good - decent views from everywhere and reasonable sound quality (as good as I've heard in an arena, certainly).

I have to say that it does piss me off that you can't take your own bottles of water into the arena. The restriction is purely about money, of course. I don't know if they even tried to justify it on any other grounds.

Getting home again is more of a challenge. It takes forever to get down to the tube platform. Ok, no longer than it would from Earl's Court, say, but given it's all newly built you'd hope for quicker transport than they've managed. Huge queues for buses and taxis, as well, so we stuck with the tube and eventually got on a train about 30 minutes after leaving the arena. Paddington was busy as well - is it me, or have they reduced the number of post-midnight trains back to Reading?

To sum up: I enjoyed it well enough, but I'd rather see Cale, or Howe, or someone who's prepared to take a little more risk... (we'll ignore the fact that I'll be seeing Steely Dan in Hammersmith in a couple of weeks, 'cause that show certainly ain't gonna be taking any risks!)

Tonight we're going to see Snow Patrol at The O2 Arena (or the dome, as it used to be known, before anyone found a good use for it). The band is a bit more... mainstream, say, than most I tend to see these days, but it should still be a good show, and a kind of "thank you" to V for putting up with previous random gigs like John Cale and the Howe Gelb & Friends shows earlier this year!

According to The O2's website, the arena's an improvement on echoey barns like Wembley Arena and Earl's Court (note to self: sort out leave and who's going to the beer festival this year!), so we'll soon see if they're exaggerating when they say:

I hope they aren't - I've had to put up with lousy acoustics in the past at some gigs, though to be fair it's not just the concrete boxes that suffer (one of the worst I've heard was British Sea Power at The Forum in Kentish Town), but it does tend to be these arenas that sound the worst, which is one of the reasons I tend to prefer smaller gigs...

Photo linked from Snow Patrol's website.

Via Boing Boing, Gnarls Barkley's song Crazy, performed on the theremin by The Ether and Aether Experiment. What more could you want to cheer up a miserable June day?

Too right - we need more theremin in popular music. Who were the last band to use it? Space, or someone? Bill Bailey seems quite fond as well, but, damn it, we need more!

Today's awful pun, courtesy of xkcd:

In a couple of days I'm heading to Cheshire to take part in the 23rd Annual UK Shield Challenge, a golf tournament over 3 rounds and 2 days. The tournament is affiliated with HP, and started out (way back when!) as a north v. south competition between 2 of the offices, but by now it's got teams from all over HP UK, and plenty of people taking part who, like me, have either tangental or historic attachments to HP (I spent a little over 6 years, in two 3-year stints, working in their Bracknell office as a consultant).

Each year a different team organises the event, and this year it's Team Manchester who have the pleasure, and they're taking us to Carden Park. Last year my team (the glorious "Fast Bogeys") organised the event, which we held at Woodhall Spa. That was a great few days, and one of the finest courses I've ever played on. I hope this year is as good..!

My Dad was 60 back in January, and for his birthday my Mum bought him a gliding lesson. Since she's such a nice person, she got me one for my (not at all significant) birthday, so I could join him. After an aborted attempt a few weeks ago, when it was rather misty, we finally flew yesterday.

We flew at the Yorkshire Gliding Club, on Sutton Bank in North Yorkshire. Spectacular views, even though it was a bit hazy, and I may even forgive my Dad for finding a bunch of thermals and getting lots more air-time that I did, but since I had more time in control of the glider I suppose we came out even...

Lots of pictures up on my Flickr stream, and movies of my Dad taking off and landing at YouTube (or there will be when they've finished processing!)

I've just upgraded to DasBlog v1.9.7123.653. My apologies if things have been (and still are!) a little temperamental around here!

Now, to get the config tab working again...

Update: Edit tab wasn't working because there was an entry in site.config which was referring to the previous version of the FreeTextBoxAdapter. I removed the entry, and it all worked again:

I've also taken this opportunity to use the dasblogupgrader.exe tool to remove all the pingback spam that was cluttering up a lot of my pages...

This makes very depressing reading: A physics teacher begs for his subject back. I have a degree in physics (albeit not an impressive one, but hey, that's the effect that a very close and cheap bar had on me when I was that age...), and I thoroughly enjoyed the subject at school. It spoke a language that just made sense to me. The article says:

Given the sort of teaching that he describes, I just can't see that I would have given a damn. It would have bored me to tears. Hell, if I'd wanted that sort of a subject I'd have studied sociology or something (no insult intended to the sociologists out there!); what I loved about physics was the elegance of a mathematical proof being able to illustrate the reality of our universe.

I believe that the understanding of science is of vital importance. I'm not talking degree-level understanding, but the ability to grasp the basics. How else can you evaluate the constant barrage of competing claims, the latest health scares, the ridiculous uses of statistics, that we're all subjected to?

The author (Wellington Grey) is asking for help in making this issue better known. It certainly should be.

Update (2007-06-26): A petition has been created - please sign it.

Another wonderful cartoon from XKCD:

"Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now" by Mitch Benn and the Distractions.

My favourite lines start around 2:16: "This could be Embrace, Keane or Snow Patrol/Thirteen Senses sound like this as well I'm told/It could be anyone/It's so hard to say/Maybe this is actually Coldplay".

Mind you, Coldplay themselves were ok when I saw them in 2001 at Brixton Academy, and I'm going to see Snow Patrol in June at the O2 Arena, so maybe I shouldn't mock...

Found via Pharyngula. It would appear that PZ is more militant but less angy than me...

I loved this, from the Norwegian TV show Øystein og jeg:

Hat tip: Cosmic Variance

IE and Excel are rubbish. Just thought I'd get that out of the way first.

Right, we've got a process that sends files, either as attachments to emails or directly over FTP/HTTP. The source of these files is a database, so to send the files we have to write them to disk first. Slighly wasteful at first glance, but it works. The XML files are set as encoded in UTF-8:

Now, it was noticed that the files we created didn't open correctly in IE, with the error "An invalid character was found in text content". I had a quick look, and the character in question was the not-exactly-exceptional "£". It seemed that the reason for the problem was that the file was saved as ANSI (rather than UTF-8), because the code that did the saving used the machine's default encoding:

Now, while Firefox (for example), plays nice in this situation and displays the file correctly, IE can't cope with the fact that the file has been saved as ANSI, is declared as UTF-8, and contains a pound sign. So, solution: set the encoding to UTF-8. Simple.

Well, not quite. The same code is also used to create CSV files as well as XML files. I've no idea where or how these files are used (they're just dipatched into the ether as far as I'm concerned), but if they can't be opened in Excel then we regard them as broken. However, Microsoft (in their infinite wisdom), haven't bothered to let Excel cope with CSV files that are encoded as anything other than ANSI, so a UTF-8 encoded CSV file translates the pound sign to "£", which is somewhat annoying. So instead, I have to work out the file type, and encode as UTF-8 or ANSI as required.

As I said, IE and Excel are rubbish.

Howefest 2: The Return of Howefest

Well, that was another great evening!

We started with a bunch of songs from the current line-up of Giant Sand, who were joined by a visibly nervous Lonna Kelley for 2 numbers. The next guest was Henriette Sennavldt (from Under Byen) who sang 2 songs, the first introduced as an opera, the second being Classico from Is All Over.. The Map.

Next up was Emiliana Torrini, who did a couple of lovely songs with her band (must look out for an album!), then Fernando Vacas and Flow, who were followed by a brief interval.

The second half of the show was started by Mary Margaret O'Hara and band, who did 3 songs. Can't decide here: the musicians were great, and she can clearly sing, but she seemed a little... distracted, maybe? Slightly drunk? Not sure. Next was Isobel Campbell who did a couple of great songs.

Then we had The Handsome Family, who did great versions of Bottomless Hole, After We Shot The Grizzly... and Weightless Again.

Finally, we had the full 'Sno Angel experience, with the Voices of Praise choir. Not sure how many numbers they did, but it included Paradise Here Abouts, Worried Spirits, Robes of Bible Black, But I Did Not, Chore of Enchantment, Get To Leave, and a couple of presumably new numbers that I didn't recognise. Thrown in for good measure was a great cover of Led Zep's Immigrant Song!

Shame it all had to end!

See also:FT review, and here.

Apparently, there's a certain number that isn't very popular, at least with the MPAA. So unpopular, in fact, that they want to ban it.

In case you're interested, the number starts (in hex) 09 f9, then has a bunch of other digits, and ends 88 c0.

If you're a decimal person, parts of the middle look like this: 17 2 157 116 227 91 216 65 86 197 99 86.

Just for the sake of it, here's a string of 0s and 1s: 1001111110011000110100111011110100111000111011011110110001000001101011011000101110001110101101000100011000000.

Doesn't seem so scary when it's just 1s and 0s, does it..?

Thanks to the Giant Sand website, I've found a link to the programme for this evening's fun at the Barbican. The PDF can be found here. God, this is going to be a good show..!

The full line-up is:

Tomorrow evening we're going to see Howe Gelb & Friends at the Barbican. It should be an excellent show, with a line-up including "Isobel Campbell, Emiliana Torrini, Mary Margaret O'Hara, The Handsome Family, Giant Sand, Sno' Angel Choir, Lonna Kelly and more special guests, kith and kin and past collaborators to be announced."

I saw the last show of this sort that Howe did, the (Upside) Down Home show that was part of the Beyond Nashville season at the Barbican in 2001, and it was a superb night (voted gig of the year in 2001 by Time Out, and reviewed here by The Independent), and caused me to start listening to Lambchop and Sparklehorse, who I'd not heard before that evening (and who I've seen since on their own).

It's great that the Handsome Family are playing - it was looking like I might have the first year in a few where they didn't play somewhere near me. Wonder who the unnamed guests are - last time PJ Harvey turned up, maybe this year we could have Neko or M. Ward? Hopes....

Right, I'm back after 3 weeks working for a company outside of Birmingham, staying in a hotel that had neither internet access nor even a mobile phone signal, so I read a lot of books... Anyway, last week I was skiing in Chamonix (which was mostly fun: great weather and good snow, but by the end of a week I'm fed up with prising myself out of bed for another day of pain and suffering on the slopes - I should try long weekends instead!), and since the weather had closed in on Saturday we didn't go skiing for our final morning, instead heading back to Geneva early.

This, of course, meant that we had quite a lot of time to fill before we could check in for our flight home. Fortunately we stumbled across a bowling alley and pizza restaurant very close to the airport, advertising pizza by the metre, so how could we not have a look?

The bowling alley was, well, a typical bowling alley, with 12 lanes. The pizzas, however, were some of the best that any of us had had in quite some time. My Cappriciosa was delicious, with a just-set egg in the middle of it, and plenty of artichoke, ham, and mushrooms on it.

As far as I can make out, the bowling alley is here. I have no idea what it's called, mind you, but if you find yourself needing to waste some time during the day before a flight from Geneva airport, I can think of far worse places to be...

Also, I like the new check-in arrangements at Geneva for EasyJet. They have a bank of terminals in which you enter your reference number, and which then print out all the boarding cards and luggage tags for your party. You tag your luggage, then take them to the check-in desks, who scan and weigh then, and that's it. You're done. Quickest check-in I've ever had - so why can't you do the same at Luton?

While I'm wondering about EasyJet's policies: why on earth did our ski boot bags count as oversized luggage when we were at Luton? I mean, a boot bag isn't exactly a huge item...

CityRag has tracked down the YouTube videos of the 20 greatest guitar solos (according to Guitar World). Indulge your air-guitar impulses here!  Over 7 minutes of the Freebird guitar solo!  What more could you want...

From Christopher Hitchens: A Life of Living Dangerously. I completely agree with his eloquent defense of the right of all of us to go to hell in our own ways, or, as it's otherwise known, enjoy ourselves. I am an adult; I am quite capable of deciding what I wish to eat, drink, and do, for myself and don't need the constant hectoring of our government reminding me that these things may be bad for me. I know this, but consider the pleasure of indulging to be of more importance than the risks they entail. As Hitch says in the article, 'Above all, I could say that whenever I hear someone intone, “Sir, I’m going to need you to…” my instinctive response is, “And as for you, sir, I need you to stay the fuck out of my face.” '

Hat tip: the Drink-soaked Trots.

I've been hoping for something like this for a while: GooSync allows you to synchronise your phone's calendar with your Google Calendar (including hosted domains). The only other ones I'd found for Windows Smartphones required the .Net Compact Framework 2, which I can't install. Seems to work ok, though it's been a little temperamental this afternoon, but that might be because we get almost no mobile signal in our office...

You Are 88% Cynical

You're cynicism borders on paranoia. Worry less. You're out to get the world as much as it's out to get you.

Hat tip: Outside the Lines

I've just read a very interesting article by Peter Gutmann, called A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. To quote the executive executive summary, "The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history". You can find it here.

Now, by background I'm a Microsoft sort of person. I've worked as a developer on pretty much all versions of Windows since 3.1, and I don't even have Linux installed on any of my home PCs at the moment. However, everything I've read about Vista has made come to the conclusion that there's no way I'm going to install it on any of my PCs unless Microsoft give up on the bloody stupid idea of crippling people's PCs at the behest of the studios. The injury to be added to the insult is the price of the damn thing, too - Amazon have Home Premium listed at £220.

Hat tip: Boing Boing.

Ok, I confess: I'm a sucker for classic rock...

The Veteran You scored 90%!

You've picked up the majority of the classic rock basics. You probably have a classic rock collection and can sing along with most of the songs on your local radio station. This is not the highest score, but it is arguably the best: that subtle combination of impressive knowledge and not being a pretentious geek.

I've just spent the last hour listening to Joanna Newsom's new album, Ys. Named after an ancient Breton city, and pronounced "ees", it's an album that would be very easy to dismiss as pretentious, overblown, over-arranged, over-produced, and (from the reviews I've seen so far) overrated. These comments may even be accurate, but it's also a beautiful and thoroughly interesting piece of art.

This is Newsom's second album, and was recorded by Steve Albini, arranged by Van Dyke Parks, and produced by Jim O'Rourke, though Newsom's voice and harp take centre stage. The album's 55 minute running-time contains just 5 tracks, the shortest being the last, Cosmia (at a smidge over 7 minutes), and the longest, Only Skin, being over 17 minutes long.

I must admit that when I first read about this album in this month's Uncut magazine, I thought it sounded like an album that I'd find a lot easier to admire than to actually like. I know it will probably be regarded as heresy by many, but that's been my reaction to Cat Power. I have her last two albums, You Are Free and The Greatest, and I don't think I've managed to listen to either all the way through, even when I've been listening on headphones at work, as they just don't seem able to sustain my interest. Ys was a different matter; my first impressions quickly confounded my expectations, and I became more interested with every passing minute.

I think it's the little details that kept me listening: the banjo that plays four notes, then vanishes. The lyrics that seem to delight in the shape and sound of the words as much as their sense (which is something I've always liked about Howe Gelb, too). The unexpected turns that her voice takes, breathy one moment, squeaking like Bjork the next, but never annoyingly so.

Such gushing praise is most unlike me: put it down to being suprised and delighted that an album so far removed from the world of X-Factor can get released - more power to Drag City for doing so.

Now I think I need to put some Tom Waits on to balance things out...

What is the speed of a meme?

That's the age-old question that Scott Eric Kaufman is trying to answer - find the details on his blog here.

Well, ok, it's not exactly an age-old question, but an interesting one none the less, so if you have a blog, please copy the link and ping Technorati...

(via Bitch Ph.D)

I've just finished listening to Tom Wait's new release, the mammoth Orphans. It's a three-disk set, split in to Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. The first disc contains 16 tracks of his "full-throated juke joint stomp" (as the sticker on the front cover says), the second has 20 tracks of ballads, and the third 20 tracks of the ... odd stuff. The last 2 tracks on Bastards aren't listed, but FreeDB has them as "Dog Treat", one of his in-between-song stories concerning a 36-inch long dog snack, and "Missing My Son", another spoken word piece about a nice lady he met in a convenience store.

In addition to 30 new songs, the tracks include "2:19", "Fannin Street", and "Lord I've Been Changed", which I'd only heard before on John Hammond's album of Wait's covers, Wicked Grin. There are also B-sides, such as "Buzz Fledderjohn", which was originally on a CD single from Mule Variations, and the track "Dog Door", originally on Sparklehorse's It's A Wonderful Life.

Since Tom is a rather acquired taste in my experience (which is to say that most of my friends violently object to my playing any of his stuff in their company), this definitely isn't a purchase for those who aren't fans, but the first two discs at least will be joining my other favourite Waits albums in my regular playlists. It's certainly a hell of a lot better than certain other b-sides and rarity collections I've got... just wish he was likely to be touring the UK again soon!

From the wonderful xkcd...

I really wish I'd been able to make it to the Calexico gig at the Roundhouse on Sunday - it sounds like it was a great gig! At least I saw them earlier this year with Iron & Wine at the Forum in Kenntish Town. Is it just me, or is the sound at that place always poor? Calexico sounded ok (they must have a sound engineer who knows their job!), but every other band I've seen has sounded, quite frankly, lousy. When I saw British Sea Power it was awfully muddy - I couldn't even pick out the guitar lines, it was just a wash of sound. Maybe it's my ears, I don't know...

Anyway, the following message has just been posted on the Calexico website. While I don't live anywhere near the places they're playing, I still think it's a good idea to post this as widely as possible. So, dear readers (both of you), here you go:

So, the contest, you ask? What of the contest? Well, we’d like for you to help Calexico spread the news and bring people out to the shows by telling everyone you know about the events. The following is a list of things you can do to help. Every time you complete one of the opportunities from the list, you’ll be entered to win two tickets to the Calexico show nearest you, a copy of World Drifts In (Live at the Barbican) DVD, and a vintage Calexico tour poster. In other words, the more you do, the more likely you’ll be to win.

If you don’t live in any of the cities covered by the tour, don’t worry! You can still enter the contest and participate in spreading the word. See below.

1) Write your local newspaper, radio station and/or television station and tell them about the event. Ask them if they’d be willing to help by publishing an announcement about the event to inform your community. Send a copy of the letter to us at calexicocontest@tgrec.com or

Calexico Contest – Quarterstick Records
PO Box 25542
Chicago, IL 60625

2) Repost this bulletin including a personal message to your friends. Then post a comment on our myspace page (myspace.com/tgqs) saying that you’ve done so.

3) Post this message on your personal blog (non-myspace blogs) and send the direct link to calexicocontest@tgrec.com .

Calexico Tour Dates:

12/02/06 - Rialto Theatre, Tucson, AZ w/ Annuals
12/03/06 - Launchpad, Albuquerque, NM w/ Annuals
12/04/06 - Orpheum, Flagstaff, AZ w/ Annuals
12/05/06 - The Clubhouse, Tempe, AZ w/ Annuals
12/07/06 - Soho Restaurant, Santa Barbara, CA w/ The Broken West

This was the first time I had visited Koko, the recently refurbished Camden Palace, and they certainly seem to have done a good job.  It's a great little venue, and we found a place to stand at the front of the balcony, which gave us a great view of the stage.  Shame they only have Smiths Smooth to drink!

Neko Case and M. Ward appeared as a double-bill, with each performing a one-hour set, and it was great to see two of my favourite artists (and two of my favourite albums of this year) at the same gig.  M. Ward started the evening off with a mesmerising solo performance on acoustic guitar and piano.  He drew from all of his albums, with Chinese Translation, Sad Song and his melancholy cover of Bowie's Let's Dance being particular stand-outs.  I was as amazed as the last time I saw him with how superb a player he is: you'd swear at times that there were a few of him on stage.  I don't know how he manages to play both the rhythm and lead parts on an acoustic at the same time.  He also made good use of looping pedals, laying down rhythm parts that he then played over (shade of Rainer, I thought!).  The audience seemed very appreciative; maybe as it was a double bill plenty of people had come to see him as much as Neko.

Neko also performed material from all her albums bar The Virginian, including Canadian Amp, her tour-only CD (which I finally managed to get hold of at the gig), from which she played Hex and Knock Loud.  She also included a magical cover of Dylan's Buckets of Rain, though I was mildly disappointed that she didn't do Look For Me (I'll Be Around), which is one of my favourite tracks from Blacklisted.  Still, the ever amazing Furnace Room Lullaby made up for any songs I may have wished she'd played.

Neko's band included Kelly Hogan on backing vocals, and John Rauhouse provided his usual magic on pedal steel, banjo and guitar.

Songs I remember hearing included (in no particular order): Furnace Room Lullaby, Hex, Knock Loud, Maybe Sparrow, Star Witness, A Widow's Toast, Dirty Knife, That Teenage Feeling, Set Out Running, Deep Red Bells, I Wish I Was The Moon, Favorite.

Lambchop were, as I hoped, superb on Sunday evening. My companions were somewhat more sceptical, however!

The evening opened just after 7:30pm with a 15-20 minute set from Hands Off Cuba, with William Tyler from the 'Chop joining them on guitar. It was an interesting piece, and I think it was just the one piece, though split into a few sections. It reminded me off Pink Floyd in places, with long sustained chords and simple, yet elegant, chiming guitar parts. It made a interesting and appropriate introduction to the main set.

The rest of Lambchop ambled on stage at around 7:50pm, without a break between the opening set and their own. Kurt sat centre stage (in his hat, as ever), surrounded by 5 other members of Lambchop and the 2 guys from Hands Off Cuba. I should mention that Tony Crow referred to Reading as "the city of romance". Was their previous gig in Slough?

The set drew from at least the last 4 albums (or 5, depending how you count the Aw C'mon/No You C'mon pair), certainly going as far back as Nixon, from which they performed a beautiful version of Nashville Parent, but with the body of the set coming from their recent album, Damaged.

Even my sceptical companions seemed won over by the musicianship on stage, with Tony Crow on piano seeming to be the bedrock on which the sound was built. William Tyler's guitar added strange, ghostly, at times ethereal sounds, while at others I could have sworn that Paul Niehaus was on stage with them playing his pedal steel. Kurt sounded in fine form, his rumbling baritone crystal clear, at times cracking with the emotion of his minutely observed songs.

The audience seemed rapt by the performance, Kurt remarking towards the end of the show that we'd been the quietest audience they had played to so far on this tour. I could certainly understand why, as I didn't want to miss a single note...

Tour only CDs available: Hands Off Cuba - seems to be the opening set.
Lambchop - Succulence, Live 08 09 06 - a recording of this tour, from a radio broadcast in, if memory serves, Austria.

I'll be seeing Lambchop on Sunday at the Concert Hall in Reading. The last time I saw them was a wonderful night at the Barbican in London when they played their soundtrack to Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, the 1927 silent film by F. W. Murnau. No movies this time, just selections from their latest disc, Damaged.

I've been very slow to get around to posting (it's almost a month!), but that's because I was having trouble logging in, and in the end had to FTP a few files to alter the security settings for long enough that I could reset the password. Anyway, in the mean time I've found out that I would be very unusual in the US:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 8 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

So, what else is new? Well, I'm waiting for the new live DVD by the wonderful, magnificent, and thoroughly amazing Neko Case to arrive. It's from her 2003 set at Austin City Limits, of which I've previously found an audio recording on (probably) DimeADozen, and is a great set. Looking forward to seeing her on Wednesday next week at Koko in London, where she'll be joined by M. Ward (his latest CD, Post War, is also great).

So, Sparklehorse: a great set. The support (Smdge) weren't too wonderful, I thought - a mix of some electronica-ish numbers, and wannabe-Coldplay-style-things - but they weren't too offensive, either. But never mind, I was stood at the bar so the overpriced Fosters (is there any other kind?) kept me going until Mr. Linkous and his band took the stage.

Since it's now a couple of weeks since the gig, I can't remember which songs they played (but the review on the BBC Berkshire website lists them (reproduced below), but the set drew from all 4 of their albums. No Piano Fire, though, which was a disappointment, but a good mix of the slower numbers and the fuzzy-guitar rockers.

Tomorrow I'm going to see Sparklehorse, at the Fez Club in Reading. I'm really looking forward to this gig, as their new album, Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain is a superb disc - a very worthy follow-up to It's A Wonderful Life.

I've never seen Sparklehorse as a band before, but Mark Linkous was one of the guests at what is one of my favourite gigs: Beyond Nashville at the Barbican in 2001. That gig was hosted by Howe Gelb of Giant Sand, and in addition to Giant Sand and Mark Linkous, it included appearances by Kurt Wagner of Lambchop, P J Harvey, Evan Dando, Vic Chesnutt, and the John Parrish Big Band. A full set list can be found on the Giant Sand website, here. That show somehow went on to be voted the best live show of the year for 2001 by "Time Out" magazine.

Well, after spending a little over 3 years working at Hewlett Packard in Bracknell, I'm off back to the Conexus office in Windsor. Overall, it's been an interesting job, and I've gained a lot of XSL experience, I've started working with .Net 2.0, and I've seen the project grow from being deployed in a small handful of countries to its current 67 locales worldwide.

So, what's next? Well, I'll be cross-training into Java and WebSphere Portal Server (as that's where Conexus has a lot of work at the moment), so I'll be leaving Microsoft technologies behind for a while. It should be interesting, and (with luck) provide me with things to blog about as I move from C# to Java.

This evening is our leaving bash - beer and curry, and copious quantities of both...