Smiling Worlds Apart

This month's music tip comes from The Shadow Kabinet (which is one man band Steve Somerset).


We had to wait a long time since Hark! which was released in 2004 (it seems that'legal complications' may have held up this new album). I have the feeling this may have been a good thing because 'Smiling Wolds Apart' sounds very confident. The sound is more varied: from the 'full orchestra' opening with 'There Must Have Been A Moment', via the lovely accordion accents in 'What Am I Supposed To Do?', the surf guitar sound of 'Surfing On The Shadows' to the subtle mellotron and plucked violin sounds in the beautiful 'When Winter Comes To England'. Sitars in 'Sylvia The Psychic' and something that sounds like a lost 'I am the Walrus'-era Beatles track: 'Just As Lost As Me'.
With 19 tracks (and clocking in over an hour) it may seem to be a bit much to take in but it's a nice, varied album.

It's available at CD Baby, there's an offer with a bonus disk at Kool Kat Music. Or you can send a message through the MySpace page. Maybe there are still some free buttons left!

A Farewell To Monty

Last saturday, our norwegian forest cat Monty died at the age of 17 (a very respectable age). We like to think he had a good life with us.

Bird feeder

Until now, I've never posted a picture of our bird feeder in action.

This month's music recommendation

It's time I started a montly (monthly? Well, we'll see how it goes) music recommendation.
How about I start with Zender? Read a great review of their (first) album 'Acid Avenue' in the dutch magazine OOR.I like how there is a 'radio' theme throughout the album (of course referring to 'zender' which is dutch for 'transmitter') sometimes creating the impression that someone is tuning the radio you're listening to a different channel. Some tracks are short and catchy, some are a bit longer and feature guitar solo's that give me a 'Pink Floyd'-feeling (in a good way).
One point of criticism could be that the version of the song 'Lux' doesn't sound as bright as the rest of the album, the single version sounds much more 'direct'. I first thought it was an evil ploy to make us buy the single, but you can download it for free.


Update: new single 'Something’s At Stake' out now, again downloadable.

Who is that smart-looking guy?

Finally we have bought a suit for Daniel. Straight from the rack except his trousers needed some taking in (something I can only remember from half a life ago). Added new shoes (european size 47, I'm glad we have some good shoe-shops nearby!)
And look what a smart-looking guy he turned into, eh?

Mascotte

Our daughter likes her new school a lot, she leaves the house with a smile even though she has to travel for about an hour (taking the train to Amsterdam). One of the current projects is making a proposal for (and of course designing) a mascotte. She has chosen our son's nature study group (NJN) and has made her design with sketches and drawings. One of the final steps is presentation of a concrete model, she has chosen clay and of course I couldn't resist to snap it.

Let it snow...

I finally took the opportunity to take a picture of our (still new-ish) terrace covering with some fresh snow. It doesn't snow that much here and when it does most of the time the temperature is just above the freezing point.


Indeed, as I'm writing this the snow is already melting away (in fact you can already see the first traces on the left side in this picture).

Smoking ban is failing?

So, we got into this pub last week about eight-ish. No one was smoking which is as we (non-smokers) expected it to be after the smoking ban came into effect in july this year.
However, after an hour or so the ashtrays were placed on the bar and people started lighting up. The bar personnel responded to our questions with the comment 'all the bars are doing it, if we don't allow smoking people will be going somewhere else'. Anyway, since it was not so crowded yet it was bearable. Within the hour, there was a phonecall causing the ashtrays to be hastily collected (it turns out there is a system where bars call each other if there is to be an inspection). No biggie for us as by now it was getting more crowded and the band was due to start playing. After a great set the band took a break and a guy from the bar came on stage announcing that smoking was allowed again (inspection was over I guess). This led to about half the people lighting up and a lot of the 'other half' (including us) getting their coats and heading out into the fresh air.

Crazy.

One of the good things about Almelo

As I wrote in this post we were in Almelo for a few days. Luckily this coincided with the dutch band Barrelhouse playing in the local pub Proeflokaal Belgie.
I had heard from them years ago and frankly didn't know they were still around. It turned out one of the friends we were away with knows one of their guitar players so that's how we got to know about it in the first place. We arrived early and settled at the bar (that stocked plenty of good Belgium beer, of course), in time to watch the band come in and set up their instruments. Amazing to know that the band started over thirty years ago and they're still travelling around in a rented van playing small pubs like this. It was a great concert, you can tell they are really doing it because they love the music.

Take a listen on their myspace page.

Below a YouTube video for your viewing pleasure.

Bummer @ work

The financial crisis has hit our company, forcing the directors to take actions. Among other measures, forty people were laid off. This including the manager that I worked with for about ten years. Sad, sad times.

Had a nice week

A week ago, we had a nice 'midweek' out in Almelo (of all places).
Food was good and plenty, drinks were free and there was a lot to do.
In another post I'll write about one of the other good points of Almelo.

New online music site

One of my rss-feeds pointed me to a new 'play online music for free' site: We7.
Interesting, as sites like Pandora were forced to restrict themselves because of the licencing costs.

Anyway, the sound is good and bandwith is adequate (no sudden stops midsong). So far.
I'm probably going to create an account and play around with it.

Time sync of a linux virtual machine on an ESX host

It took me a while to find this following information, maybe it is of use to someone out there.
If you have installed the VMware-tools on your linux box but don't have X you can't use 'vmware-toolbox'. However you can turn on synchronisation with:

> vmware-guestd --cmd "vmx.set_option synctime 0 1"

You can (and should) turn off ntpd if you do this.

Leek pie

Lynn's 'special recipe' leek pie.
As usual, this gets gobbled up pretty quick in our household! :-)

Thanks, redundancy

We had a circuit breaker trippping in our server room this weekend.
Luckily it was only one and all our servers have dual power supplies. Still, nice to know things actually work and are connected properly.

Sep 28 04:44:46 Fibre Channel Loop is Down (8012)
Sep 28 04:44:58 Availability for LUN 600508B40001356500016000004A0000 changed to Reduced
Sep 29 07:47:24 Fibre Channel Loop is Up (8014)
Sep 29 07:47:41 Availability for LUN 600508B40001356500016000004A0000 changed to Alive

Merel hast passed her final exams!

She was nervous until the final liberating phone call from school. She shouldn't have worried, she has marvellous grades.
So, as is customary here in the netherlands, we hang out the flag with the schoolbag attached.

Sun screens and roll-down shutters

Yesterday our house was upgraded with sun screens and roll-down shutters. I'm sure that in a few weeks we will think 'now why didn't we do this years ago'. It took the workmen only five hours to attach them.


There are some more pictures here.

Chimney sweep

We don't use our fireplace that much, so we don't need to have our chimney sweeped that much. But because our chimney doesn't get sweeped that much, we don't use our fireplace that much.
Anyway, it's done now.

Unexpected guest

Not knocking on the door but quietly waiting to be let in, yesterday there was a duck standing in front of our door. When Lynn opened the door it just walked in and started eating the pieces of bread she threw. Of course I had to get my camera.

Accepted!

Our daughter Merel has been accepted as first year student on the Media College Amsterdam.

She has been a bit nervous about this because admittance was partly based on her portfolio. And as her current schooling is floristry she was unsure if her work would be good enough.

Now all she has to do is pass her exams...