lightning strikes twice

Inspired by Jon Aquino

Personal Hero: It would have to be someone with an unwavering devotion to a purpose.  While I’m very pragmatic myself, my heroes are people who are not, but who rather dream and don’t compromise.  I want to be like them.  If I had to single out a hero, it would Jeff Mills, a pioneering musician and DJ from Detroit, who makes techno recognised all over the world as unique.

Personal Style: I don’t know the answer to this one –  but being married to a fashion stylist means I’ve definitely had to pay more attention to it over the last couple of years!  Let’s say neat and understated.  That is also how I’d describe my taste in interiors.

Morning Routine: Must, must, must include exercise first thing, usually preceded by twenty minutes of meditation.  The rest of my day flows so much more smoothly when I’ve made awareness and movement a morning priority.

Best Thing About Life Right Now: Being married to a wonderful woman, and expecting a child at the end of this year make me happy in the middle of 2008.

Most Treasured Possessions: My books, and my music.

Basketball Diaries: I would play, watch and breath basketball every second of every day if I could.  I love it.  My local professional team, the Sydney Kings, have recently become defunct.  I only became a season ticket holder last year (after watching on television and live for years), so I’m devestated.  I still play twice a week, but I don’t know how many more years my body can hold up.

Biggest Self-Indulgence: Forcing my bride/wife to go to watch the Lakers then the Warriors at either end of our Mexican wedding-moon.

Favourite Meal: My wife is an excellent cook, so there are many dishes I’m in love with, but right now it would have to be a chicken sausage lentil dish that is superb.

Childhood Dream Job: I really enjoyed programming as a kid (even before I like basketball), so I guess being a programmer is just about perfect!  But playing in the NBA would be good too!

Favourite Software: Textmate, Eclipse, Firefox, Songbird

Science Fiction: Was a constant as a kid.  I don’t read so much of it now, but I still like to have possibilities presented to me.  I love to watch a good Sci Fi movie too, but have mostly been disappointed with recent ones.  My favourite definition of Science Fiction is as not necessarily futureistic, but rather “Fiction that’s not considered good unless it has interesting ideas in it.”

Movies: I said to a friend who works in film recently: “You know, I think I’m a bit of a film buff”, and he could only laugh… apparently it was blindingly obvious to everyone but me.  I have very high standards for films that I watch.

Future Vision: I would love to indulge my passion for learning by forgetting about working for money, and rather studying whatever took my fancy.  But working with technology that I’m passionate about seems to be a good compromise, as you’re constantly learning in the technology field.

So, all the posts here recently seem to be about music, which is as it should be, because that is about the only thing I’ve got the time to enjoy lately.

Anyway, along with the new Head Direct canal-phones, I’ve switched from iTunes, which seemed to be freezing my Macbook Pro and is a program I’ve always hated, to Mozilla’s SongBird.  I’m only one afternoon in, but I’m loving it so far — beautiful interface, web & blog integration, non-crashing, sane library management, cross platform.

Two thumbs up!

New ear-phones (canal-phones to be precise): Head Direct RE2

I bought some pricey (~$180) Shure EC2 canal-phones a couple of years ago, and HATED them.  Really uncomfortable and sound not discernably better than the much cheaper Sony’s that I’d had before.  After twenty four hours with these new Head Directs, I’m angry at myself for not cutting my losses with the Shures much earlier, they truly were rubbish.

The Head Directs are a little tinny, but the comfort and isolation means I can put up with a bit of brightness.

Musiquarium was a phenomenal radio show back in the early ’90s, playing all the early rave sounds, and a whole lot more.  I spent my teenage years glued to it and wherever else I could get the sounds.  While I’m still a music fiend, I’d pretty much forgotten most of the tunes that were such a formative part of my youth… I was a little embarrassed by the idea of rave music actually — you know “bang bang bang piano piano”.  Now I tend to listen to soul/funk/hip-hop with quite a bit of rather serious detroit techno too, which is all very different from my early years.

Anyway, Nik Fish, the man behind Musiquarium, has posted some mixes online of all the top tunes from back then, and I can’t tell you how AWESOME it has been to listen to them again.  They’ve reminded me of how all encompassing the rave scene was at the time.  Big parties, all night long, amazing music, lots of friends from ALL over Sydney, who I only knew from Saturday night parties, and some of whom I still see around.  The new Musiquarium mixes have almost straight away become some of the most treasured bits in my music collection.

Some of the big artists: Fargetta, Anticapella 2, Capella, Dream Frequency, Andromeda, just as a start

by Neal Stephenson

Like the previous two instalments, Quicksilver and The Confusion, The System of the World is almost 1000 pages, and is so dense with information as to make it a tough read.  I  knocked this one over in ten days of holidays — and this is probably the best way to tackle it.  Being immersed in the story and having little else to worry about means not having to retrack your steps.

Anyway, in this story we hear about Daniel Waterhouse, Isaac Newtown, Jack the Coiner/Jack Shaftoe, the Russian monarchy, Liebniz, Princess Caroline, Eliza and many more in a story about currency, gold, and the organising of England, and following, the world.  Fascinating, but like I said, almost tiring in its intricacy.