Blog by Sean McManus

Things I meant to blog about, but didn't have time

05 July 2008

What I meant to blog about	What I would have said
Sticking Space Invaders to my wall	They look awesome, but it's very fiddly unfurling them if they stick to themselves. Get some but be careful.
Seeing David Gilmour and Ron Geesin perform Atom Heart Mother	The extended sections were great and the choir and brass sounded fantastic. It was a thrill to be one of just 900 to witness David Gilmour perform this for the first and probably only time during my own lifetime.
Seeing Roger Waters perform Dark Side of the Moon at the O2	Great show, but odd since the star only plays bass on most of it. The solo stuff worked better in many cases. After trying to get a ticket for months and only being offered crap seats, I picked up a first class seat two days before the gig, through Ticketmaster. 'Sold out' gigs are never really sold out.
Ripping vinyl	Some great stuff has never been issued on CD, including a lot of Prince 12"s. Being able to move music between media like this and enjoy the sounds I paid for some years ago is a good argument against DRM. Use Audacity.
Ripping tapes	Having a tape deck fitted in to your PC is the next big thing. For former walkman fans like me, it's an easy way to digitise all those albums I bought on tape and haven't re-bought on CD yet, and all those home recordings I made. I won my tape deck in a joke competition.
Gardening	We've got an allotment now. It started off with knee-high grass all over it, but we're slowly reclaiming it. This year we're growing courgettes, sweetcorn, cabbages, and rhubarb there, and in the garden we have squash, tomatoes and herbs. Cats are evil.
The novel World War Z by Max Brooks	This account of the Zombie war is written as a series of interviews with survivors. While the lack of a central hero or recurring character means it jumps around a lot, it is a great way to convey the scale of a planet under siege. An engrossing story, and an interesting format for fiction.