Configuration without the 'con'

XBox Live! now recognised - just need to test it "in action" but it seems ok as far as the ultra-geeky stupidly-hidden diagnostics go.

eMail configured AND the ISP's webmail service tested too.

It seems, ladies and gentlemen visitors to The Towers, that I'm jolly well back in action.

I'm off to treat myself to some Green Tea candy........

Hello - it's the cable guy...............

"Cable Guy" was here early, was here for no more than maybe 10mins and in that time laid the cabling, connected up the modem and left no mess. Very friendly etc.

Some 5 mins after that I'm online {big grin} - just tested the speed and I got 20mb down in 1min 45secs. I think that should be fine {bigger grin}

Now just got to get my email and xbox configured..........

Wonka-san, welcome to the Towers - for real.

I know people are waiting for the Wonkatastic new film, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", but I'd point people to look out East - the joys of wild and wonderful confectionary already exist in Japan.... and now in my house. For all the things in the film, some of this stuff matches it in every way.

As some of you may know, I recently sold my car. Actually you *all* should know as it was in this very Blog. In order to deflect feelings of guilt something had to give.

I thought I'd treat myself to a visit over at jbox.com, a route into the oft baffling world of the Japanese world, and it's inner sanctum of sweets and treats. I've always been interested in everything over there, from the social etiquette through to cinema, and the food and drink through to the music. The chance to sample some of it for real was far too tempting.

So, just under two weeks later, the parcels arrived in perfect condition here at The Towers.



Between them were pastries, biscuits, candies, drinks and gums. Most would have baffled me if it wasn't for the very detailed descriptions on the site - trust me, the pics on the front of most of the packets convey about 10% of what's inside.

Here's the full list, in all it's fantastic glory:-


Toppo -- Baked Chocolate Snack
Petit Soup Bread Snack -- Minestrone
Lotte Black Black Gum
Glico Maple & Butter Pretz w/Cinamon Sugar Pack
Pocari Sweat Powder
Meiji 100% Grape Juice Gummi
100% Juice Gummy -- Green Apple
March of Koala -- Melon Soda Cream
Morinaga Okinawa Black Sugar Caramel
Mugi Cha (Barley Tea) - 52 cold water tea bags
Lotte Pie no Mi -- Custard Pudding
Meiji Mini Assortment -- 5 Set of Various Candy Box
Sugarless Green Tea Mint Candy ~ Nodo Ame
Bourbon Petit Snack - Fried Mayonnase Rice Cracker
Ci-Ma Puccho -- Muscat
Sweet Green Tea Aulet
Mikakutoh 'Hero' Shigekix -- Victory Cola Flavor
Mikakutoh Charcoal Roasted Coffee Candy
Morinaga Green Tea Caramel
Matcha Ame -- Green Tea Candy


It's the invention and flair for combining the least obvious things in the world that catches my eye. Where else could you find "Minestrone", "Black Sugar" or "Fried Mayonaise" as flavours ?

Also the packaging alone deserves plaudits - it's colourful, unique and very eye-catching. I've picked a few examples for you to feast your eyes on - whilst I get to feast on the real thing ;o)









I've so far tried a couple of small cubes of the green tea candy. They're chewy like Starburst but tasting of freshly brewed Chun Mee tea. Also the genius Fried Mayonaise crackers. Even just opening the packet gave out a warm, savoury smell to make the mouth water. Whether you can actually fry mayo in the first place is a bit of a pointless question. It works and it works damn well.

Ray, you're lucky and will get to taste some when I grab a few samples for the office on Friday, but the rest of you will have to just imagine what's inside the packs.

Actually, having opened a couple, that's really not going to be easy ;o)

Sailing the seas of change..........

Just a quick note of things happening here at The Towers in the next week or so.

Having been with my service provider for about 10 years or more I've been paying each month for an "unlimited, unmetered account" and quite happily smurfing the W3 quite happily.

Suddenly, out of the blue, I get a letter telling me I'm using more than my monthly allowance. This isn't after the first month of doing so by all accounts - they waited three months then tell me I've been over for that period and that I'm a very naughty boy and they may cut my legs off at the knees (cancel my account).

Hang on, wind that back and just think about that for a second...... more than unlimited........

How can you use too much of something that supposedly has no upper limit ? Struck me as kinda odd so I phoned to find out which guest celebrity comedian was working in their office this week, sending out the joke letter and such like hilarious pranks.

Seems like they have clowns, no less, working in their planning department too.

With as little warning as possible they decided to levy a cap on adsl users unmetered accounts, only mention it in tiny small print changes to the terms of service, not notify anybody if they tripped over the new rules AND charge people the same as for the previous service as well.

I've decided to therefore give Wanadoo (such an ironic name in the situation) the heave ho and set sail for the distant shores of Blueyonder. I'll be starting the swap to them in the next few days.

Anybody mailing me on my GMail account will still be read with no hassles but I expect a little downtime blogwise whilst I migrate my smurfability - I'll be moving from dsl to cable so I'm sure there will be some sort of confusion and calamity in the swap. Anything involving two men in a van running fibre-optic cable is just sure to fail on the first attempt.

The moral of this tale ?

The grass CAN sometimes be greener on the other side, especially when somebody slides concrete silently under your feet where you stand.....

I'm apologising to myself...but not meaning it for one minute....

Just caught the first two tracks of tonight's creaking-under-it's-own-assumed-coolness that is Top Of The Pops.

The weird thing is that the two tracks are things that, in principle, this Carpathian should abhor.....but I didn't.

First broke my golden rule of dance acts lifting parts of old tracks and trading off them now. the Audio Bullys featuring Nancy Sinatra doing "Shot You Down" is, frankly, mesmerising. Her voice is as amazing as ever on that haunting track and the crunching cut-ups and beats don't for some reason distract from it in any way. Just the opposite in fact - the drop outs leaving her even more in the forefront.

Second one was even more of a shock as it broke both Carpathians first rule (see prev mention) AND added the fact it was a rap artist. Kanye West performed "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" complete with {draws breath} the use of Shirley Bassey singing "Diamonds Are Forever" and some stupidly big strings. How in the name of all that's audio does that have ANY right to work ??

Both did though and I'm most surprised. I've always told everybody that'll listen (and many that would rather not) about my varied taste in music but even I'm raising an eyebrow at myself right now.

It's the thought of what could be the next thing to surprise myself with that worries me.....

Update - it's a music thang......

Just a quick update on the whole music thang.

Thanks for the fevered communication from various sources this morning - your words are appreciated. Good to see a little mini whirlwind of a debate opened up, resolved and closed so easily !!

It seems, above all, that I was right that music matters.

Watch this space, people linked {below-right}, for a new place we can ALL go and post our musical spewings........

Music Matters: Volume One

As promised, here's my first post regarding a few CD's or, to be more exact, artists that have sat with me over a good few years now and still succeed in bring many emotions on every single listen.

They aren't meant to be exhaustive write-ups of the artists entire life and recorded outputs - this is the W3 and a few Googles away are far more words about them than I'm liable to fit in a month of these. Also, don't take the fact that some get one album pictured and others a number as a qualitative statement of overall rankings - these are routes into the collection, all hand picked with Carpy-tastic skill and judgement.......


Julian Cope
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/

peggy suicide

jehovahkill

autogeddon

Recently a newspaper review described him thus:-

For all his eccentric behavior, Julian Cope has never been convincingly weird. The more he dons turtle shells or turns in 10-minute Krautrock epics about boulders, the more he comes over like a regular man wearing a wacky tie at a party.

It's actually a very astute quote - anybody on the outer rings of Planet Cope is liable to think it too strange a place to land but, beneath all the traffic cone hats and "turn left at out-there and keep going" loose musical style, there are things to rival pretty much anybody.

How this guy got from the 80's pop of Teardrop Explodes to the self-confessed "Arch Drude" (dude + druid, get it ?) I have no idea.....but I'm very glad he did. Out went direct, obvious stomping pop and in came guitar strums, psychedelic epics, cosmic krautrock jams and acid-fried campfire singalongs. Only with a stomping pop hook. There's that contradiction again.

Among the wealth (in quantity AND quality) of albums the three above stand out as a trilogy of sorts. Covering love, emotions, the Earth, religion, alien life, transport policy and numerous other things they are sprawling collections which take many listens to really sink in.

The simple ones are way more complex than you realise and the fully realised ones are far more basic than they have any right to be. Somewhere in the middle of these two the Cope exists and prospers, being both a minstrel for the third eye and, probably to your surprise, the countries leading mind on stones, relics and areas of (pre)historic interest around Britain.

In the same way Cope is more than willing to have opened his mind to things outside the stoic norm, so it's worth doing the same with the contents of his albums.



Prince


around the world in a day

Lets get the obvious comments out of the way first, shall we ?

He's short. He once scrawled the word slave on his cheek. He changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol and then back again. He has a flamboyant choice in clothes.

There, done - now on to what I wanted to write.

The small (purple) one has during a quite ridiculous number of releases gone everywhere - funked up rock, glammed out funkadelica and perfection in pop bliss. One day a huge chart classic for Chaka Khan, Sinead O'Connor or the Bangles - the next day a grinding funk jam workout or a pop-rap radio friendly singalong.

For all the love and apathy that exists for the wee (purple) one, there also exists at least something for even the most skeptical audio traveler. I'd go with the cloud suited Around The World In A Day, back from when he was nestled in amongst the Revolution. Pop and psychedelicious arrangements mingle pretty much perfectly together in, for me, still one of his towering moments.

If you've never dabbled due to thinking he's just a bit too odd for you, then maybe hit the back catalogue in order to get a handle on the fact for all his star tantrums and press-baiting stunts, maybe in this case the devil doesn't have all the best tunes.....

I'd also have to mention the track Sometimes It Snows In April from the Parade album - if this record doesn't cause emotion to well forth then your heart is liable to be common or garden stone.


Tricky
http://www.trickyonline.com/

maxinquaye

pre millennium tension

nearly god

angels with dirty faces

blowback

Drug addled spokesman for the wasted generation ? Spokesman for weed psychosis effects ? Mumbling chancer ?

I guess anybody could pick one of these and assume that was the case.

Personally, I'd take those as maybe 25% of him. Even with the rasped whisper of a delivery his lyrics are stupidly clever. Urban poetry, phonetic raps, drawn out tirades....all hit the spot with what feels like a consummate ease. I pretty much blank 90% of rap from my ears due to finding it a seriously vapid waste of breath but somehow, in slowing it down to the speed of thought, this stuff hits home.

The thing about Tricky though, to me, isn't purely about his vocal style.

Having started as a member of Massive Attack it's fairly obvious where the basis of his sound issues from. Trip Hop. There, I said it and the world didn't stop spinning, did it ? For many it's a sound been and gone, something of a whole dropped musical age. What there is here though is music that evolves between albums, and manages to hold the attention during each too. Many years after it was the in album "Maxinquaye" still sounds very fresh, very sensual and like drowning in something very sleek.

Aside from the music there's also a serious, and surprising, role call of guest partners in crime - the (ir)regular contributions of Martina Topley-Bird through to Terry Hall, Alison Moyet, Bjork, Alison Goldfrapp, P J Harvey, Cyndi Lauper and even the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Each rises to the occasion, somehow having the best drawn out of them with the ease Tricky himself enjoys a reefer.

Want something contemporary but still quite unique ?

Tricky, isn't it.....

Notes to self on notes from others......

What with myself confessing to yet more musical re-discoveries in a recent (ie just below this) posting, and with the mentions by onkroes in recent ones of his here and here, I just had to get myself round to yet another musical post.

Like music itself I'm going to steal a flavour from elsewhere (for this read whole idea) and drop in a few bands/artists that I've been listening to both recently and pretty much off and on over the last many years. Buying a bigger MP3 player can seriously put smiles on a persons face when trawling the shelves to rip stuff to load onto it.....

I'm wondering if I can convince others to do the same ??

With this making at least two of us doing it in this quadrant of the blog-map then surely that's tempting you all to grab your keyboard any down some thoughts and recollections from your (oh, the pain) collections.

C'mon - you've only your facades of coolness to risk......?

Nostalgia Status: Def.Con.One

So, I'm quietly sitting at my desk at work and wondering just what defines "sexy dalek pictures" as requested by a regular visitor to The Towers.

A sexy Dalek ? A picture of a Dalek that's sexily shot ?

Strangely enough though, this post has nothing to do with said Dalek-mania, aside from posters now realising that I do read and occasionally act upon the comments added by people out there.

No, this is about what hit my ears and made me smile as I was doing said thinking. More exactly, the age and style and the music and what it made me realise more than ever.

We all realise that clothes come in and out of fashion, that methods of cooking food wander in the door marked "favour" and out of the door marked "cliched", only to sit outside and wander back through again more than once.

Flares ? Tracksuits ? Blackforest Gateau ? Fondue ? Crepes ?

In amongst a "random" clump of tracks I hit upon a blast of samples, raps, guitar and general lunacy. Causing the grin was Pop Will Eat Itself or, if you will, P.W.E.I.


Knocking the random option off I listened to most of "This is the Day, This is the Hour, This is This......"




For those of you not in the know or old enough to have caught it first time round - you really should hear just how good sheer enjoyment can sound when untethered by either taste or commercial greed. These were the days before sample clearance royalties, when skinny white Brits could rap in a very quirky British Way.

Songs about James Brown car chases ("Not now James, we're busy..."), TV satellite porn, lists of totally unconnected favourite things, the joy of guitars....you name it and the Poppies worked it into their music - usually all on the same track. I defy anybody, no matter how many anoraks they wear, to get where every sample on this album comes from - there are just sooooo many and so skillfully used.

The weird thing is that one point they really were de-rigeur for any crusty leather jacketed grebo, the beats could be heard bounding off the walls at everything from indie clubs to flat/squat parties and the god that was (and is) Clint Mansell was just about the coolest name to drop.

Over time, as is the way of the world, people decided that times had moved on and kinda left the Poppies and their "Beaver Patrol" behind, declaring them yesterdays news and, inevitably, they faded from site.

Many years later and Clint is now a seriously respected soundtrack writer/compiler, the perfectly targeted "PI" techno clattering and the soul devouring Kronos Quartet work for "Requiem for a Dream" coming to mind.

Lo and behold I've recently heard odd Poppies tracks being played and it now seems that on the coat tails of his current success it's cool to be a new, old PWEI fan again.

"Ok Carpy," I hear you ask, "whilst I appreciate the history of English Grebo-dance from years gone by, what has that actually to do with flares and crepes ?"

Somebody asked me a few days ago if I had anything embarrassing in my CD collection. I mentally scanned through all 1500 and, with a knowing look, simply said no.

Wait long enough and watch the rise again of those CD's and artists that the world sees fit to turn their collective noses up at. Hearing this PWEI album again today really struck me at how fresh it sounded, totally unlike anything around now. Not, for once, in a dated way, but simply from the spontaneous sound and unbridled energy - something every record company in the land would most likely kill for a shot of.

In the words of Mansell himself, dig out the old stuff in your collections and "Wise Up, sucker !"

Who's afraid of the big "Bad Wolf".......

The Doctor meets "The Controller"

I realise some of my posts on this a while ago annoyed some of you as you're either not getting it or think that you have no chance of getting it, but I've just watched "Bad Wolf", the penultimate episode of Dr Who and the ending floored me.

From a beginning with a spoof on "Reality TV" and gameshows, on through more than one surprise, the episode darkened until the revelation of 500,000 daleks aboard 2000 ships, circling above the earth. Yes, you read that right - half a million of the rolling attitude-laden wastebins.

In the trailer that followed for the grand finale, it seems like war. To see literally 1000's of Daleks on screen at once is still, after all these years, a real sight to behold - the fact they're fighting makes it all the more exciting.

To hear a building "Exterminate !" issuing from so many of them is chilling.

Oh, and yes Luke, I'll find you some good piccies.........

15min writing challenge: The Gathering.

He grimaced as the bar struck him across the ribs. Rather than chiming to the floor as physics would dictate it clung to him as if on a mission, jamming itself in with the building pile of items threatening to envelop him.

A chair frame pulled it's wooden seat begrudgingly across the wooden floor, scraping it's protest until breaking itself free and flying to hit him in the back across the kidneys. He fell to his knees again, each time finding it harder to lift and balance the load around him.

As he stood, the metal nails holding the floor boards down came up with his knees and rolled around his legs in the oddest of ways, always clinging to him with a zeal for the task.

He knew there was little chance of getting outside - the door handle had flown free of the door and struck him in the stomach as he'd been trying to escape the onslaught of the inanimate.

Even if he couldn't physically escape, his mind tried to wrench him free of the ever more desperate situation. He had to think his way out of this before the weight crushed him or an item didn't stop when it hit him and in the end passed right through.

He thought back to anything that may explain things......

He couldn't work out what he'd been doing wrong. There he was in the trendiest bars and clubs, with his finest suit broken out into action. A subtle aftershave used on just the subtlest hint of stubble. Italian shoes shined until he'd swear they'd ceased being black any more.

Yet nothing.

No action.

No interest.

All the most thought through witty reposts and flirtacious come-ons and not a single glance beyond the norm.

What made things worse was seeing other guys around his age with women dripping off them like it was the most natural thing in the world. These were guys without, to his eye, an ounce of style between them. Work clothes, old casual jackets that had seen better days, shoes that need to look polish up in the dictionary.....they had nothing on the effort he'd made each and every night out.

There they were though, every time. Everywhere in the room swarming with beautiful, laughing women....everywhere except where he happened to be.

He'd taken to going out less. It wasn't rejection that got to him but more the fact it didn't seem to get so far to even have the chance to fail. He'd have done anything for even the scraps from the others that weren't having the same trouble. It destroyed him to find himself thinking like that.

It had been at that moment that he'd uttered that request under his breath. It didn't seem like much and he could have thought of many more greedy things. Still though, he had asked, albeit subconsciously. Maybe life really was part of a grand joke after all - there was clearly something with a sense of humour behind this.

All he'd asked for was a magnetic personality.

As the thought struck him so did something else and the room faded out of sight.




The police found him cold and crushed. A metal covered address book embedded in his forehead.

A cruel irony considering the situation.


............................


Inspired by this picture.

This is a new 15 Minute challenge, brought to life by Dinesh and noticed by me over at ten miles beyond the city.

The rules are as follows:

1. Click here and choose any image you like.
2. Compose your piece in less than 15 mins.
3. Post it to your blog.

The Yellow Peril.

Give in and try not to sing along

This is not my site.

This will drive you mad.

You need sound on for this.

If you are at work do not click unless you wish to attract the attention of your entire workplace.

I predict that as annoying as this is you will both venture back after you have closed it for the first time AND listen to it for far longer than makes any reasonable sense.

Macro Millennium Moments.....

It's funny how you take things for granted.

I work, as I've mentioned far too often, within a stupidly short distance of the quayside in Newcastle upon Tyne. Urban regeneration, leisure features, art gallery, music venue and the bridge - all available to use when needed.

The strange thing is that I tend to spend my lunchtime at work at my desk. It's a regular round of having a bite to eat, checking up on blogland and places like "Google news" or "News Now". It's pleasant enough and it distracts me enough to give the impression of not being at work for that hour.

For a change, however, I decided to get out of the office and into the glorious sunshine we've been enjoying today. With my lunch in hand, and my ears filled with far more music than I'll ever need, I sat for 45minutes on Millennium Bridge and soaked up the sun whilst watching the world go by.

There's something great about actively doing nothing for a period of time. Time passed a lot slower than staying in at work and the mixture of real life and music made for a great break. You suddenly notice little things that you'd miss when just concentrating on getting from A to B. Odd details on buildings, combinations of clothing, the fact there are more colours in the river Tyne than you'd noticed.....all the minutiae that pass you by.


It went along the lines of:-


Sits down and realises metal seats are REALLY hot
Switches player to random for a change

Type O Negative

Get mesmerised by the way the gulls circle round as if on strings

Depeche Mode

Ooooh look, some American tourists !

Johnny Cash

Shall I eat the apple or the banana ?

Tom Waits

Aaaaaah, look at the little tug boat !

Queen Adreena

Still 30mins left ? Wonderful !!

Devin Townsend

Ha ! That kid fell over !

The Arcade Fire

Wish I'd brought my shades today.



...and it carried on like this for the best part of the hour.

Now to many of you this may seem incredibly banal, possibly verging on boring, but the point is that it's very easy to take things for granted when they're on your doorstep. I've crossed the bridge twice a day for many weeks now when going to and from work, but never actually sat there and used it as anything other than functional.

When Mondays are more sane and balanced than the weekend before....

For those of you following the exciting world that is mine (yes, I realise that was said with tongue very firmly in cheek) I thought I'd drop a little update on recent things. Those of you new to The Towers may wonder what I'm rambling on about.

{stops to think}

Actually, for that matter, most regulars wonder that on a regular basis so welcome one and all to a new week at Carpy's Blog'o'Confusion !

Friday was weird. Busy at work, selling my car and then getting very drunk on Absinthe. I've not drunk the stuff for a week or two and hitting it hard on a pretty empty stomach was maybe not the best bet. It's lovely stuff though and not a difficult thing to drink to excess of an evening.

Managed to catch up with a friend online very late into the session and was pleasantly surprised (and a little proud) that some of my fingers still worked at that point. The brain was flying, the fingers were holding together and the body was asleep about an hour before. Such fun when even the simplest of words "kidna cone otu lik thsi".

Saturday morning was weird - waking up really early due to the sun streaming through the window and realising that my head felt about the weight of Mars. Yes, that's the planet and not the chocolate. Though if it was the latter it would have been the Kingsize version.... but wrapped in a lead wrapper.

For those of you that haven't drunk the green stuff before the morning after is always a little...odd. No hangover in the traditional sense but you feel that your brain has a few seconds of satellite delay combined with one of those television "wobbly screen" effect. Yet you also still have a brain racing at a higher speed than normal. Strange and neither unpleasant nor pleasant. I remember going shopping in the same state a few months ago and catching myself thinking "Am I actually shopping or still asleep dreaming this ?". So strange.

Wandered into town in my befuddled state and grabbed my new MP3 player. From the state my head was in from the green fairy's after effects I may well have got home and found it was a cabbage or a spaniel that I'd just bought - I really wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer all day. More the cutting intellect of a sponge.

So my new ear-filler is a Zen Touch, a natty white block that's part iPod and part "touch-sensitive stripe-thing". I'm sure there's better ways to describe it - can you tell I don't work in the ad industry ? I've so far crammed 166 albums onto it and still have nearly 15Gb out of the 20Gb left.

I think I'm (a) going to like this and (b) will be glad I sorted my CD's out last week !

Famous ? Infamous ? Googlicious !!

Yep, it's my time to join the Googlism train - choo choo !!!



carpathian is an oil
Slick. They're trying to say I'm slick.

carpathian is not in possession of any information that would be required to be disclosed under subsection 713
If only they knew how much I'd found out about subsections 712 and 714......

carpathian is a invention? i want more information if possible
I hide the springs and cogs well, don't you think ?

carpathian is a fascinating notion
Some would say best left at that too

carpathian is both upsetting and fascinating
One before my first coffee and the other just afterwards....

carpathian is identifying new gold
...and when I do...It's all MINE I tell you...!!!

carpathian is
Whoa...that's like heavy and stuff....

carpathian is blasted with positively energized slime
Makes a change from the usual mudbath....

carpathian is a historical region with many important touristic point of interest
Maps of me available at the front counter.

carpathian is a right gentleman
Finally somebody notices !

carpathian is largely involuntary
Yep, I'm all knee-jerk reaction and puppetry

carpathian is about to drive byron crazy with his rap music and untried skills
The Lord does not my turntable skills appreciate..

carpathian is a species of people coexisting with humans
...only until the time is right to take over....

carpathian is her every reason for living life just like she is his
Sweet words but awful grammer

carpathian is a being of a timeless existence
Makes it tough to calculate my pension payments though....

carpathian is your ideal lifemate? take the quiz
Q1) Yes or no ?

carpathian is killed by his subjects
{strikes "collection of subjects" from his masterplan checklist}

carpathian is called eli
That was only for tax purposes....

carpathian is a reminder of bygone whaling days
Blubber, folks, that's where it was at...

carpathian is formed by hard crystalline rocks with deep ravines and clefts
yeah, and 14 tubs of moisturising cream a day to get this 'younger than the hills' complexion

carpathian is the descendent of ambrose carpathian
Ah, daddy !

carpathian is for reconnaisance
Just haven't learnt to come back after nosing, that's all....

carpathian is named vigo
Misdirected post again...{sigh}

carpathian is the dog the romanians have developed from ancient times
It was the final addition of rear shocks that really brought the breed into the modern day....

carpathian is a cool villain
When you lose to me it'll be in style, baby...

carpathian is the first operational virtual airline of romania
My emergency exits are here, here and back there....

carpathian is forming slowly
....and worth waiting for.

carpathian is your personal favorite?
Of course ! Is there any other choice worth considering ?

carpathian is also legendary
To have 'legendary' as your 'also' - now that's cool !

carpathian is close by
I'm in the shadows.......

carpathian is a "big meanie"
Only if you catch me before breakfast....

carpathian is now available on cd
...but not available in the shops

carpathian is not a vampire until he starts attacking both human and vampire and loses all human feeling
I'm on my way - my left leg is already all conquering evil.

carpathian is very inconsistent for me size wise
Doughnuts or salad - so difficult for a Carpathian

carpathian is a private company constituted under the laws of the british virgin islands
...and my profits are all under my mattress

carpathian is also slightly higher as published data for similar rocks
I was standing on a chair when calibrated.....

carpathian is also a vampire she could become a killer like him
Just the first in my new army.....

carpathian is examined largely because this is potentially a volatile area now experimenting with efforts to create transboundary regional cooperation
I'm hoping they don't find my hidden compartment. I'll show them volatile if they do !

carpathian is dismissed even as he staggers away
Story of my life !

carpathian is to attack
...and you won't see me coming until it's too late.....

carpathian is doing full steam
...and showing no sign of ever stopping !

carpathian is no more
Don't speak too soon !!!

carpathian is back
See, told you so !

Wheels today, gone tomorrow: Lucretia2 leaves home.....

A car is simply a means to get from A to B

A car is a simple mechanical device

Cars do not have feelings

I have hardly driven my car in the last 2 years

All this time it's been sitting around doing nothing I have been paying road tax, car insurance, breakdown cover, MOT's and services and will therefore be both saving money each month AND easily afford a hire car or train ticket as needed in the future

So why therefore, with all the above being true, do I now feel really, really terrible sitting in my place after just coming back from selling my car ?

I've not missed it all the last 2yrs when I've not been driving it because I've known it's there. I know it's the right move but it's the first time in about 18yrs without a vehicle.

So, to Lucretia2, the Ford Ka2 that could, I say goodbye.

{Oh, and I'm now going to be buying a new mp3 player tomorrow - selling the metal lump isn't all bad news ;o)

Think before you open your mouth........

There are some quotes that have to be quoted again....and again....and again....until everybody has seen them.

As such:-


"640k ought to be enough for anybody"

Bill Gates

Fractured Buckley.......

Just been reading a playlist over at Fractured Memories and it's led to a lunchtime with "Grace", er, gracing my ears.

No matter how good you remember that album to be it always seems better when you listen to it again. I know many albums are hyped up as the "big thing" but so very few manage to live up the crown placed upon it once time has taken it by the hand.......I think this does though......sigh....

So, Onkroes, I thank you for indirectly giving my ears some joy and bringing back a million memories attached to this album. Music really does transcend pretty much anything, doesn't it.....