Went to see IV PLAY, play at bar med last night. Top gig. Rock and roll.There’s a review of the night with photo’s here.

I’ve just got back from soundchecking and setting up for a big gig at Bar Med tonight – me and dan and trumpet. Should be a good one – pop in if you are in town and say hello!

Lat night Eirene and I went to the VIP preview of Harrogates newest club : Bar Med Harrogate. Superb new laser and lights and the new sound system, although nowhere near ‘full tilt’ was impressive – It’s s very rare to get stereo in a club – they seem that have managed it in a massive sweet spot across half the dancefloor where it sounds v.cool. Wasn’t really my kind of music last night but had a good laff with a load of mates who turned up non the less.

“seasonal/topical fun (well for about 30 seconds)” – err… thanks (?) to Carl for this link.

YELLOW SNOW FROM PANLOGIC

This arrived today:



It’s a “Fantastic Instant Fireplace DVD”. I quite agree. It’s quite nice to have a real fire flickering and crackling away in the corner of the room. It may be getting some air time at FIREIII. Chuck another logo on the fire.

VIRUS ALERT



This new worm virus gets into your system, then sends out loads of bogus emails to random people containing the virus. It’s worse when you run a domain (eg dragondrop.org) because one of the things the virus softare does is generate random prefixes – eg “ray@….”, “dave@….”, mary@….” and so on.

So – if anyone I know, or even don’t know gets an email form me and it has a zip file with a file called ‘test’ in there, or a pif file – don’t open it !

The Virus is called W32.Novarg.A@mm and was discovered on Jan the 26th.Further info here

Hello, I thought tonight would be the perfect excuse to restart my blogg relationship. My reason being that this evening I have been to my first rehearsal for a musical I am taking part in. Don’t ask me the name all I know is that it is a gangster musical set in the 20’s on a boat. I am playing an angel one of four that play back up to Reno a cabaret singer. Well it is all very interesting and tonight I discovered that although singing alto suits my voice it is very difficult to maintain as the tune you can hear being sung is soprano and not even close to the notes I should be using. But I am sure it will all become easier as time progress’s. How I became part of this step from my normal life is simply I spotted an advert in the Harrogate advertiser requesting parties interested in acting to come along to an audition which happened to be last Monday. As the masochistic part of me forces me to do things that really scare me I went along to find that not only was it musical but I also had to audition properly in front of three adjudicators (one of who looks like Simon off pop idol which threw me even further). Because I had no idea of the score or the cast they made me do scales (evil evil) then a dance sequence (not so bad I thank my days of clubbing for nimble footery). Then I left into the dark winter’s night never expecting to hear another word except their laughter ringing. So imagine my surprise when I got a phone call the next day to inform me I had a part and rehearsals started next week. And I am also going to learn to tap dance. Maybe I can incorporate into my fire poi routine I am sure I will keep you all informed on how it is going or at least Matt will. On a more normal note am taking Jaygo swimming tomorrow. His speech is coming on really well but he hasn’t quite mastered the intricacies of swimming pool. To him it is the weee poooo and he goes on a toooosday…. bless.

Ciao

This video is beautiful. (not so good for non broadband viewers.) Would you believe a guy is using an over head projector as his chosen medium. He sketches out scenes in sand on his OHP. Superb score as well – click the link below, turn the volume up, right click and choose full screen mode, sit back and enjoy.OHP Art – Sicaf Seoul

Thanks to Dan for sending me that link.

Top night last night. Played at spent hello to those that were there!

Cor – it’s a nice day today. I’ve just been outside and the sun is actually quite warm. Stroll on spring.

T-Minus one week on our next FIRE party (FIRE III).

Kung Hei Fat Choi ! It’s the Chinese New Year. 2004 is the year of the Monkey.

Some interesting stuff about it all here : South China Morning Post – Chinese New Year 2004

Just had a follow up, in the shape of an email sent to me, for the Agnes / dream thing I mentioned on here a couple of days ago….

In answer – I have no idea!

Jaygo made this today.



Captured my imagination. Is it a portrait of Felix Mama and Dada ? Is he a Jackson Pollock prodigy ? Is it a happy smiley face ? What ever it is – I think it’s great.

Eirene tells me it was St. Agnes day yesterday. Apparently, if you had a dream last night (or so the tale goes…) it’s the dream of what the future beholds. Having done a bit of a search on the net to find some further info, I found perhaps the strangest bit of writing I’ve ever seen on the internet (Apart from perhaps DragonDrop.org at times.)

I’ve been working in the exhibition center today installing some plasma screen for some exhibition stands. I made an observation that StarWars fans (of which I know that out of the DragonDrop readership, there are a few) that know Harrogate may find interesting….

The main part of the Harrogate International Centre is it’s auditorium. It looks like this (snapped with my 7650):



I saw a plan of the same building and was blown away by it’s similarity to that of the Millennium Falcon:



Would you agree ??

Just been watching this program about the Dutch with Jeremy Clarkson (he was presenting it, not sharing the sofa with me you understand). He’s been speaking to this guy who’s got a fantastic hobby website. The main jist of it is recording speed cams. Their location, and a record of some of the abuse they receive. Not only are they set on fire (and photographed, and sent to this website) but painted, filled with insulation foam – sprayed and even wrapped in wrapping paper :

One of the other things this guy does is to hunt the hunters! – His car is rigged up with a stack of radar detection devices. First, he tracks down the radar cops hidey hole or rigged unmanned car (cloggy cops can be very sneaky.). Next, he puts a cardboard sign upstream of the traffic, warning coming motorists of the radar risk, then he drives up to the radar police and photographs them into a submission (guess where these photo’s end up). Nice work! Here’s a link.

Tuf-tuf Club (English Version) Check out the “Killed Gasto’s” link. Also check out this page - look at the photo at the top before scrolling down.. “This lady is really panicing. But what for Christ sake happened that made her so upset?

“ Then scroll down. Notice anything unusual ? Yes – David Blaine is an ‘innocent onlooker’. Shazaam.

GRRR! I’m vexed. I’ve just tried to repair my camcorder, a JVC GR DVL 150 with a spare part called a zoom unit that took me ages to track down and cost me £30. I broke the new piece in exactly the same place as the original piece broke. There is a flimsy join on the unit, about 1mm² (that takes the strain every time twist the mode dial from off to on) that snapped again as I was putting it back together. Admittedly it was a budget range digital camcorder but this seems a major design floor. Is it one of those things that they design in on purpose to ensure a limited life span of said electrical “goods” or just a design oversight? At the moment, I’m favoring the former. On top of that, I had to spend £7 on a precision screwdriver set to work on the camcorder. I was really hoping to get into some abstract filming to be played on monitors and projectors etc. at gigs. That inspiration will have to wait a while now, or be re-thunk.

Swimming Prior to my GRRR incident, we had a great day. Started out at the Blues bar with a full on Blues English breakfast. This has got to be the best breakfast in town at the moment. (Please let me know if you know better!) Popped into bar med to collect something then went to Water World at Monks Cross near York. This place was ace! They have this think called a lazy river that is a circular route round the superbly designed pool complex that has a current. You can just float and the current takes you on a trip round the main pools. As well as that, they have a wave machine and 3 flumes. Felix and I climed the stairs to the top then poor wee man froze with fear when we got to the top and refused to go down. I was not allowed to go down with him due to safety reasons so we sheepishly had to go down the passages and steps to ground level again. Maybe next time. After that we went for a happy meal and drove home.

Last night Eirene and I went out with some old mates for some drinks. Crabtrees, which is almost identical to Franks bar was about 10 years ago was the starting station. After this we went to revolution for some coctails (Rasputins – very nice) then Bar Med. DJ Trev was rocking the floor upstairs and Girl Alix was grooving the VIP lounge downstairs. Cracking venue this place is shaping up to be. Bar Med is poised for a re-launch. On the menu will be new lights, sound, deco and even a state-of-the-art laser is on the cards for the re-opening (30th Jan). The venue seems to be finally shaking it’s ‘towny’ image and in my opinion is set to be the best big venue in town. I can’t wait to see the laser…. Speaking of Bar Med, DragonDrop’s FIRE III party will be on Feb 1st 2004 at said place. Bring it on!

It’s a real shame that America got their lander working before Beagle II (the Brit attempt.) This latest picture reveals why…



Thanks to Chris for that submission